Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882 – November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typographer and engraver.

Biography

Gill was born 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 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's 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 experiemnt 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. In 1928 he moved to Pigotts near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where he set up a printing press. He took on an apprentice named David Kindersley, who became a successful sculptor and engraver. In 1932 he produced a group of sculptures, Prospero and Ariel, for the BBC's Broadcasting House in London. In the 1990s, the BBC adopted Gill Sans for its logo and many of its on-screen television graphics. In 1937, Gill designed a postage stamp for the Post Office, and in 1938 he 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.

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; 1930–31), Aries (1932), Floriated Capitals (1932), Bunyan (1934), Pilgrim (recut version of Bunyan; 1953) and Jubilee (1934).

A deeply religious man, Eric Gill published numerous essays on the relationship between art and religion. He also produced a number of erotic engravings.

Gill died in Uxbridge, Middlesex in 1940. His headstone identifies him simply as a "stone carver" ^*.

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)

Pupils of Eric Gill

Gill's pupils include William Bloye and Don Potter.

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
Thorpe, Joseph: Eric Gill, 1929
Yorke, Malcolm: Eric Gill — Man of Flesh and Spirit, 1981

External links

Examples of Gill's work at the Tate Gallery.
Identifont biography

Eric Gill | Eric Gill | Eric Gill | Eric Gill