While studying at the Hastings School of Art, Harold spent over a year studying the Spanish masters, and in particular Velazquez. This Spanish genius, as well as the work of Whistler, had the greatest influence on the young artist.

During his student years, he met and married the American artist Grace Cornelia Canedy, and the young family moved to London. Together with his wife, Gilman traveled to the United States to visit her family in Chicago and even tried to join the Kennedy family business, but was unsuccessful. Gilman had two daughters (one was born in London and the other in Chicago).

At the same time, he joined the British Union Artists Association, moved to Letchworth, where he began to experience the influence of the French artist Edouard Jean Vuillard.

In 1912 and 1913. Harold Gilman visited Scandinavia, where he went with the artist William Ratcliffe, who had friends there. There, Gilman painted landscapes and cityscapes, including his famous painting “The Bridge over the Flekkefjord Canal”, which was inspired by a painting by Vincent van Gogh, who painted a similar bridge in Provence. Gilman initially did not accept the Dutchman’s work, which did not prevent him from becoming an ardent admirer in the future.

According to the recollections of Gilman’s friend, the English artist Wyndham Lewis, Harold bought postcards with Van Gogh’s works and hung them on the wall in his studio.

At the same time, Gilman, along with the French artist Charles Ginner and the English artist and engraver John Nash, briefly joined Robert Beavan’s “Cumberland Market Group”, an artist group that did not last long.

In 1917, Harold Gilman remarried, and in 1918 traveled to Nova Scotia.

The artist died in 1919 during the flu epidemic that raged in London in 1918-19.

Many of the artist’s paintings are in the London Tate Gallery, Gilman’s solo exhibitions were organized by the Tate Gallery in 1954 and 1981, and in 2007-2008, the artist’s paintings were included in retrospectives dedicated to the Camden Town group.