Meeting
Walter Sickert in 1907, Gilman became a founder member of both the
Fitzroy Street Group (in 1907) and the
Camden Town Group (in 1911). In the meantime he joined the
Allied Artists' Association, moved to
Letchworth, and began to show influence from work of
Vuillard as well as Sickert. , 1912. In 1910 he was stimulated by the first
post-Impressionist exhibition at the
Grafton Galleries, and visited Paris with Ginner. He soon outpaced Sickert's understanding of post-Impressionism and moved out from under his shadow, using ever stronger colour, under the influence of
Van Gogh,
Gauguin and
Signac. In 1913 he exhibited jointly with Gore, and became the first president of the London Group, and identified with
Charles Ginner as a '
Neo-Realist', exhibiting with Ginner under that label in 1914. Gilman visited
Scandinavia in 1912 and 1913, and may have travelled with the artist
William Ratcliffe, whose relations lived there. Gilman made studies of the environment, and painted
Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord, an accurate depiction, whose subject is likely to have been inspired by Van Gogh's depiction of a similar bridge in
Provence. Gilman had rejected Van Gogh's work when he first encountered it, but later became a strong admirer. According to
Wyndham Lewis, he kept postcards of Van Gogh's work on his wall and sometimes hung one of his own works next to them, if he was especially satisfied with it.
Ruth Doggett, and
Marjorie Sherlock. He then started his own school with Ginner. In 1918 he was commissioned to travel to
Nova Scotia by the Canadian War Records; and painted a picture of
Halifax Harbour for the War Memorial at Ottawa. He died in London on 12 February 1919, of the
Spanish flu. == Legacy ==