The relationship soon developed into one of mutual need, and Edith invited Gluck to live with her and her sister Norma on her family estate, Chantry House, in Steyning, Sussex. When Gluck moved in on October 6, 1944, neither woman realized that it would begin a troubled thirty-year companionship.

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The triangular living arrangement caused a permanent rift between Edith and her sister, who moved out two years after Gluck joined the household. The relationship between Gluck and Edith also soon soured. Edith allowed Gluck's economic and emotional needs to dominate her home; and since Edith did not have enough money to purchase a new home, the disharmony led her to travel frequently with friends.

Gluck never recovered from losing Nesta or from the war's devastation. A permanent rift between her and the brother who managed her trust fund also developed after her mother died in 1958. In addition, both Edith and Gluck began to suffer from a variety of illnesses as they aged.

During the years Gluck was with Edith, she allowed her painting to suffer and she faded from the public eye. She did, however, become a life member of the Royal Society of Arts and was commissioned to paint some portraits of judges between 1955 and 1968, including one of her second cousin, Sir Cyril Salmon (1957-1960).

While Gluck was depressed and relatively inactive during her years at Chantry House, she did indulge her love of quality painting materials. Long frustrated with the quality of paints and canvases, Gluck began a decade-long battle with the British Board of Trade and commercial paint manufacturers. Fortunately, the Arts Council of Great Britain, British Colour Manufacturers Association, and two important museums backed her efforts.

Gluck's tireless work resulted in the formation of the British Standards Institution Technical Committee on Artists' Materials. For the first time, there were published standards regarding the naming and defining of pigments, cold-pressed linseed oil, and canvas.

The artist finally returned to her easel during her old age and one of her works from this period, a painting of a dead fish head, its flesh mostly eaten away, was a great success. The title Rage, Rage against the Dying of the Light (1970-1973) was taken from the poem Dylan Thomas wrote about his dying father. The artist knew that she was painting death, the loss of love, and the loss of years that had been wasted.

In 1970 Gluck decided to have another exhibition of her work. The three-year process of organizing the exhibition was hard work, and Gluck suffered a heart attack in November 1972. The exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in London opened six months later and was a great success. The fifty-two pieces that Gluck included in the exhibition were highly praised and also sold well. It was, however, to be the last exhibition of Gluck's lifetime.

Gluck and Edith both declined in health during the 1970s. Edith died in a nursing home on November 5, 1976. Gluck had a second heart attack two weeks later. The artist suffered a stroke the following year and died at the age of eighty-two on January 10, 1978.

Gluck was a woman of many contradictions and a person who inspired both great love and profound dislike. She deserves credit for designing the "Gluck frame" and for her efforts to improve the quality of artists' materials. In addition, she served as an early role model for other women-identified women artists.

Most significantly, however, she merits attention as an artist who left her mark on the history of modern art in England. While she exhibited her work in only a few solo exhibitions, all of them were met with critical praise.

A highly successful memorial retrospective exhibition of Gluck's work was held at the Fine Arts Society in London during 1978.

A large number of significant twentieth-century European artists focused on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender themes, making such concerns crucial to the understanding of twentieth-century European art.

The female nudes and portraits of cross-dressed women made American artist Romaine Brooks's lesbian identity known to the world.