|
Jim Gilbert was born in 1933 and grew up in the East End of London. Orphaned by the age of 12, his ambition to be a 'gangster' was to lead him on an extraordinary journey and give us one of the most talented artists of the 20th Century. Gilbert was sent to a training ship for orphans and at 18 joined the Army. He spent two of his three years in the Army in prison and was dishonourably discharged at 21.  On moving back to London, He met Jean Cooper, the woman that was to change his life. During their 17 years together, Jim was to spend 13 of them behind bars for an assortment of crimes, including armed robbery and robbery with violence. However, as he started to develop his talent for painting, it was Jean who would tout the pictures around the London galleries, convinced that her husband had 'something special'His first exhibition came in 1970 at the local Whitechapel gallery.Within two years, an exhibition was held in Bath, attracting over 1500 visitors and selling more than 200 works. This was the first of several exhibits organised by Jean Davies, the founder of the Burnbake Trust, an organisation set up to help promote the talents of prison artist.
At the time, Gilbert explained his attitude to his work:"If my faces seem ugly or plain, I seldom paint or draw ugly people. I love the expression of simple emotions by ordinary people.
|
|
 |
The expressions of shyness and excitement and the feeling that rushed through them for that moment. Perhaps this is why I give them ugly faces, to contrast the beauty simply and subtly. In a nutshell, I just paint emotions and relationships, pure and simple without any exaggerated poses or intellectual undertones"
Yet again, his liberty was short lived and in the same year, he was sentanced to six years for recieving stolen property.
In 1973, he became the first recipient of the Arthur Koestler Award for prisoners art and the following year, he was allowed out of prison to attend his exhibition in Londons Fieldbourne gallery.This was a huge success and was the start of a highly profitable relationship between the artist and the gallery that was to last for over ten years.Jim commentated at the time "All this would never have happened if I had been a successful criminal, but I got nicked so often it wasn't true"
The Koestler Award and selling his pictures affected Gilbert greatly.
"I found I had a little talent in painting, and it has changed me completely-The way I think, my life, everything. It's amazing.I never stop wondering at it. Honestly, I never knew a thing about painting, but it was exciting, the same sort of feeling I'd get when I was theiving successfully, only better because I realised I had a talent for it." 
|
|
