Oil paint on canvas
Social class and social type
Artworks
Harold Gilman
Camden Town Group
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/harold-gilman-1172" aria-label="More by Harold Gilman" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Harold Gilman</a>
Mrs Mounter at Breakfast Table
Purchased 1942
adults
architecture
breakfast
clothing and personal items
cup / mug
dining room
domestic
domestic
door
eating and drinking
England
features
furnishings
headscarf
housekeeper
individuals: female
interiors
jug
kitchen
leisure and pastimes
Maple Street 47
Mounter
named individuals
objects
people
places
plate
portraits
table
tea pot
UK countries and regions
UK London
vessels and containers
wallpaper
woman
work and occupations
<p>Gilman was a member of the Camden Group of painters whose commitment to the painting of everyday life is typified in this work. Mrs Mounter was the artist’s landlady. He shows her with a blank, perhaps melancholy expression. She seems almost dominated by the very ordinary tea pot, jug and cups which speak, perhaps, of a simple life. Such simplicity in a painting would have seemed radical to audiences used to seeing more lavish subjects.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
2001-08-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-08
French Influence on British Art
Collection based display
25 April 2002 – 30 June 2002
2002-06-30
25 April 2002 – 30 June 2002
2002-06-30
2002-04-25
Southampton City Art Gallery (Southampton, UK)
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/leisure/arts
2002-04-25
A Clean and Soild Mosaic: Harold Gilman and William Ratcliffe
Loan-out
17 May 2004 – 9 December 2007
2007-12-09
17 May 2004 – 9 December 2007
2007-12-09
2004-05-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-17
Modern Figures
Collection based display
13 February 2008 – 4 May 2008
2008-05-04
13 February 2008 – 4 May 2008
2008-05-04
2008-02-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2008-02-13
Camden Town Group
Exhibition
17 November 2018 – 9 June 2019
2019-06-09
17 November 2018 – 10 February 2019
2019-02-10
2018-11-17
Djanogly Art Gallery (Nottingham, UK)
2018-11-17
Harold Gilman: Beyond Camden Town
Loan-out
27 March 2019 – 11 August 2019
2019-08-11
27 March 2019 – 11 August 2019
2019-08-11
2019-03-27
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-03-27
Van Gogh and Britain
Exhibition
31 October 2022
8 February 2021
2021-02-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-10-31
Gallery 5A
Collection based display
Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table
support: 610 × 406 mm
frame: 808 × 605 × 93 mm
Purchased 1942
<p>According to contemporary critics, Gilman's desire 'to seize the essence of a character in real life and exhibit it on <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> in all its bearings' was most successfully realised in his 1916-17 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of Mrs Mounter (Fergusson in Wyndham Lewis and Louis F. Fergusson, <i>Harold Gilman: An Appreciation</i>, London 1919, p.31). A socialist and a former member of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/camden-town-group" title="Glossary definition for 'Camden Town Group'"><span>Camden Town group</span></a>, those artists renowned for their depictions of gritty social realities in the rundown north-west-London suburb, Gilman chose as his subject not the glittering society ladies favoured by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) or Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), but a sitter of more humble social status: his landlady at 47 Maple Street, off Tottenham Court Road, where he lived from 1914-17.

</p><p>Both compositionally and technically, Gilman draws the viewer into the life of his subject. While he had used a similar pictorial structure in <i>Girl with a Teacup c. </i>1914 (private collection, reproduced in <i>Harold Gilman 1876-1919</i>, p.23 in colour), in this picture Mrs Mounter is brought forward in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/picture-plane" title="Glossary definition for 'Picture plane'"><span>picture plane</span></a>, filling the cramped domestic space and fixing us with her stare. We, as much as Gilman, are drawn into the intimacy of her domain, the edge of a plate marking our seat opposite hers at the table. Through simplified masses and coherent design, Gilman endows his sitter and the objects around her with solidity and three-dimensionality. A measured and meticulous layering of small brushstrokes is used to add depth to the surface of the canvas; where the oil is most thickly applied, on Mrs Mounter's face, Gilman approximates the skin surface itself, aged and weathered. As his friend and fellow artist Charles Ginner (1878-1952) said in defence of their shared 'Neo-<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/realism" title="Glossary definition for 'Realism'"><span>Realist</span></a>' aesthetic, 'slap-dash, careless and slick painting' was to be avoided at all costs in favour of 'a sound and solid pigment' ('Neo-Realism', <i>New Age</i>, 1 January 1914, reprinted in J. B. Bullen (ed.), <i>Post-Impressionists in England: The Critical Reception</i>, London 1988, p.475). 

</p><p>Mrs Mounter's air of restraint and self-discipline, the teapot, cups and saucers were recognised by contemporaries as peculiarly English. Yet there was also a distinctly French streak in Gilman's work, developed after a trip to France with Ginner in 1910 and his visit to Roger Fry's (1866-1934) <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/post-impressionism" title="Glossary definition for 'Post-Impressionism'"><span>Post Impressionist</span></a> exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in the same year. The vibrant orange of Mrs Mounter's head scarf echoes the dazzling palette of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/fauvism" title="Glossary definition for 'Fauvism'"><span>Fauves</span></a>, André Derain (1880-1954) and Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958); the lively patterned wallpaper recalls Henri Matisse's (1869-1954) decorative interiors. Gilman was heavily influenced, too, by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), whose letters and reproductions he kept in his studio, and whose <i>La Berceuse </i>1888 (Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), with its lone matriarchal figure and colourful floral backdrop, bears striking similarities to <i>Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table</i>.

</p><p>Mrs Mounter proved a fascinating figure for Gilman. Appearing in five of his paintings, one of which (at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool) is almost identical to this work, she gave form to his belief that 'Nothing but life can imitate the real' (<i>Art News</i>, 25 May 1910, quoted in <i>Harold Gilman</i> <i>1876-1919</i>, p.14).

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Wendy Baron, <i>Perfect Moderns: A History of the Camden Town Group</i>, Aldershot 2000<br/>Maureen Connett, <i>Walter Sickert and the Camden Town Group</i>, Newton Abbott 1992, pp.45-51  <br/><i>Harold Gilman 1876-1919</i>, exhibition catalogue, Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1981, pp.17, 32 and 80-1, reproduced front cover (colour)

</p><p>Jacky Klein<br/>February 2002

</p><p></p>
Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>Gilman was a member of the Camden Group of painters whose commitment to the painting of everyday life is typified in this work. Mrs Mounter was the artist’s landlady. He shows her with a blank, perhaps melancholy expression. She seems almost dominated by the very ordinary tea pot, jug and cups which speak, perhaps, of a simple life. Such simplicity in a painting would have seemed radical to audiences used to seeing more lavish subjects.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-09-06T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
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Catalogue entry
catalogue-entry-xml
TURNER_CATALOGUE_TEXT_WORK
adults architecture breakfast clothing and personal items cup / mug dining room domestic domestic door eating and drinking England features furnishings headscarf housekeeper individuals: female interiors jug kitchen leisure and pastimes Maple Street 47 Mounter named individuals objects people places plate portraits table tea pot UK countries and regions UK London vessels and containers wallpaper woman work and occupations