Pack of ten Maeve Gilmore Postcards

This postcard collection comprises a precise collection of Gilmore's depictions of domestic life, portraiture and play, as well as distinctive compositional instincts such as her use of doorways and windows as framing devices. Gilmore often depicted her children: in a notable series from the early 1950s they are painted in athletic or gymnastic poses; elsewhere they are shown with the family cat or with one of their father’s many taxidermy birds. Though often presenting familiar subjects, Gilmore’s works appear surreal and dreamlike in composition and attitude. Motifs and objects repeated across multiple works begin to suggest a sophisticated symbolic language: skeins of yarn woven into elaborate cat’s cradles; pears or onions placed on benches; puckish, feather adorned head–dresses.