Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882 – November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typographer and engraver.
Biography
Gill was born in 1882 in Brighton, Sussex (now East Sussex). In 1902 he attended classes, studying lettering under the calligrapher Edward Johnston at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
In 1906, he married, and the following year he moved with his family to Hopkin's Crank [or Sopers?], a house in an artists' community at Ditchling in Sussex, where he started producing sculpture. His first public success was Mother and Child (1912). In 1914 he produced sculptures for the stations of the cross in Westminster Cathedral. In the same year he met the typographer Stanley Morison. After the war, Gill founded The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic at Ditchling, Sussex where his pupils included the young David Jones, who soon began a relationship with Gill's daughter, Petra.
Gill's devout Roman Catholicism did not prevent him from living a bohemian lifestyle and taking lovers. According to the 1989 biography by Fiona MacCarthy, Gill's relationships included two of his sisters and two of his daughters. His personal diaries also describe, in great detail, regular sexual activity between himself and the family dog, which he noted in his diary thus "continued experiment with dog" etc. Robert Speaight's earlier biography mentioned none of this.
In 1924 he moved to Capel-y-ffin in Wales, where he set up a new workshop, to be followed by Jones and other disciples. In 1925 he produced the Perpetua font, based on Classical Roman lettering, for Morison, who was working for the Monotype Corporation. This was followed by the Gill Sans typeface, based on the sans-serif lettering originally designed by Johnston for London Underground.
Gill soon tired of Capel-y-ffin, coming to feel that it had the wrong atmosphere, and also being too far from London, where most of his clients were. In 1928 he moved to Pigotts near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where he set up a printing press and lettering workshop. He took on a number of apprentices, including David Kindersley, who in turn became a successful sculptor and engraver, and John Skelton (1923–1999), his nephew, and also noted as an important letterer and sculptor. Other apprentices included Laurie Cribb, Donald Potter (see My time with Eric Gill: a memoir, Gamecock Press, 1980, ISBN 0950620513) and Walter Ritchie. Others in the household included Denis Tegetmeier, married to Gill's daughter Petra, and Rene Hague, married to the other daughter, Joanna. In 1932 Gill produced a group of sculptures, Prospero and Ariel, for the BBC's Broadcasting House in London. In 1937, he designed a postage stamp for the Post Office, and in 1938 produced The Creation of Adam, three bas-reliefs in stone for the League of Nations building in Geneva. During this period he was made a Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts and became a founder-member of the newly established Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. The award of RDI is the highest British award for designers.
A deeply religious man, Eric Gill published numerous essays on the relationship between art and religion. He also produced a number of erotic engravings, reprinted as Eric Gill, the engravings, Herbert Press, 1990, ISBN 187156915.
Gill died in Uxbridge, Middlesex in 1940. His headstone, on his grave near Pigotts, identifies him simply as a "stone carver" [1].
Legacy
Apart from Gill Sans, which is his most famous creation and lasting legacy to typography, Gill also designed the typefaces Perpetua (1926), Golden Cockerel Roman (1929), Solus (1929), Joanna (based on work by Granjon; 1930–1931), Aries (1932), Floriated Capitals (1932), Bunyan (1934), Pilgrim (recut version of Bunyan; 1953) and Jubilee (1934).
In the 1990s, the BBC adopted Gill Sans for its logo and many of its on-screen television graphics.
Quotations
- Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word.
- "That state is a state of Slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him. This state can only exist when what a man likes to do is to please himself.
- "That state is a state of Freedom in which a man does what he likes to do in his working time and in his spare time that which is required of him. That state can only exist when what a man likes to do is to please God."
- — from Art Nonsense and Other Essays (1929)
- First I think and then I draw my think. quoted in My time with Eric Gill by Donald Potter, 1980
Pupils of Eric Gill
Gill's pupils include William Bloye, Don Potter and David Kindersley
Selected writings
- Gill, Eric: A Holy Tradition of Working: An Anthology of Writings, Golgonooza Press, 1983, ISBN 090388030X
- Gill, Eric: An Essay on Typography, 1931, ISBN 0-87923-762-7, ISBN 0-87923-950-6 (reprints)
- Gill, Eric: Christianity and Art, 1927
- Gill, Eric: Art, 1934
- Gill, Eric: Work and Property, 1937
- Gill, Eric: Work and Culture, 1938
- Gill, Eric: Autobiography: Quod Ore Sumpsimus, Jonathan Cape, 1940 (published posthumously) ISBN 1-870495-13-6
References
- Attwater, Donal: A Cell of Good Living, 1969
- Collins, Judith: Eric Gill — The Sculpture, 1998
- Steven Corey and Julia MacKenzie (editors) — Eric Gill: A Bibliography, St Paul's Bibliographies, 1991, ISBN 0906795532
- Gill, Cecil, Warde & Kindersley; The Life and Works of Eric Gill, 1968
- Evan Gill and David Peace (editors) — Eric Gill: The Inscriptions, Herbert Press, 1994, ISBN 1871569664
- Holliday, Peter: Eric Gill in Ditchling, Oak Knoll Press, ISBN 1584560754
- MacCarthy, Fiona: Eric Gill, Faber & Faber, 1989
- Skelton, Christopher, Editor: Eric Gill — The Engravings, 1983
- Speaight, Robert: Life of Eric Gill, 1966
- Thorp, Joseph: Eric Gill, 1929
- Yorke, Malcolm: Eric Gill — Man of Flesh and Spirit, 1981
- Robert Harling: "The letter forms and type designs of Eric Gill", 1976, ISBN 0903696045
- Jonathan Miles: Eric Gill & David Jones at Capel-y-ffin, 1992, Poetry Wales Press, ISBN 1854110519
See also
External links
- Examples of Gill's work at the Tate Gallery.
- Identifont biography
- article on Gill's private life in relation to his work by Fiona MacCarthy
