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Maeve Gilmore

2 of 2 portraits by Mervyn Laurence Peake

© Estate of Mervyn Peake

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Maeve Gilmore

by Mervyn Laurence Peake
oil on canvas, 1940s
23 7/8 in. x 18 in. (605 mm x 458 mm) overall
Given by Robert Moller in memory of Savile and Marjorie Moller, 2018
Primary Collection
NPG 7044

Sitterback to top

  • Maeve Gilmore (1917-1983), Painter, sculptor and writer. Sitter in 2 portraits, Artist or producer of 2 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Mervyn Laurence Peake (1911-1968), Artist and writer. Artist or producer of 2 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.

This portraitback to top

The portrait is likely to have been made in the 1940s when the sitter was in her twenties. An intimate and evocative work, the bust-length portrait shows Gilmore wearing a ‘turban’: in fact a towel wrapping her damp hair. During their long marriage, Gilmore was Peake’s main subject for paintings, drawings and poems, including For Maeve: ‘You are the maeve of me as this my arm/Is the joined arm of me’. The couple’s mutual devotion is recorded in Gilmore’s memoir of her marriage, A World Away, of which Anthony Burgess wrote: ‘The moral of Gilmore’s exquisite and poignant book is that life is hell, but we had better be grateful for the consolations of love and art.’ In capturing an everyday domestic moment, this portrait attests to the central role that painting and poetry played in the Peake home.

Linked publicationsback to top

Events of 1940back to top

Current affairs

Following the German invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Neville Chamberlain resigns and Churchill is appointed Prime Minister making the famous speech: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'
The Battle of Britain ends the Phoney War with Germany's attack on the nation from the air. Britain's cities, airbases and ports are bombed during the Blitz.

Art and science

With little access to sculpture materials, and a bombed out studio Henry Moore starts experimenting with drawings of war subjects. After taking shelter in a London Underground station during an air raid Moore was inspired to begin a series of Shelter Drawings. With a commission from the War Artists Advisory Committee, headed by Kenneth Clark, these became some of the most popular example of official war art.

International

Britain's attempt to defend France against German invasion by landing troops on the French coast ends in failure; France surrenders and Britain is left to face the Axis Powers alone. While the Dunkirk Landings were a failure, the heroic rescue of troops by a fleet of English civilian boats was a victory for morale, and the 'Dunkirk Spirit' came to stand as an emblem of British triumph in adversity.

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