Career
Born an illegitimate child in East Ham, Essex, (now Greater London), she spent much of her early years in seclusion and was placed in an orphanage at the age of 9. Together they had three sons with their second, Reginald, dying of the Spanish flu. The following year she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl and almost died herself, contracting a serious illness that left her bedridden for several months and blind in her left eye.
She rarely exhibited her work and never sold any pieces out of fear of angering "Myrninerest".
Following her death in 1961, thousands of drawings were discovered in her home. The collection is owned by the London Borough of Newham and is in the care of the borough"s Heritage and Archives Service.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, United States of America (1992), Manor Park Museum, London (1999), The Whitechapel Gallery, London (2006), Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava (2007), Halle Saint Pierre (Musée d"Art Brut & Art Singulier), Paris (2008, 2014), Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt a.M. (2010), Collection de l"Art Brut, Lausanne (2005, 2007). From October 5, 2013 to January 26, 2014, Gill"s work was displayed at the Orleans house Gallery.
A showing of her work took place at The Nunnery Gallery in London.
lieutenant opened on June 15, 2012 and lasted until August 16, 2012. Some of her drawings are on permanent view in The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History
Madge Gill, like many outsider artists, has continually been gaining fame since her death in 1961. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Collection de l"Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, one of the central venues for the exhibition and support of outsider art
In 2013, admirer David Tibet, himself an outsider artist, published an antiquarian-style book solely devoted to her work, the first of its kind.