Book Description

Eric Gill (1882-1940) was an extraordinarily prolific artist. Best remembered today for his typefaces: Gill Sans, Perpetua, Joanna, and for his work for the Golden Cockerel Press, his achievements ranged far wider. He trained in an architect's office, and began his career as a stone-cutter (his gravestones and war memorials are scattered all over England). He was a sculptor in stone and wood - 'Prospero and Ariel' on Broadcasting House and the Stations of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral are his work, together with more controversial pieces such as the Leeds War Memorial, and the statue of 'Mankind' in the Tate Gallery. He made many beautiful, sensuous wood-engravings, and his drawings of nudes and his erotic work have perhaps been underrated in the past. In addition he wrote radical pronouncements on art, religion, politics and clothes. #13;#13;He was a cranky, humorous but vulnerable and modest man, seemingly at variance with the dogmatic seer one might assume from reading some of his essays. He dressed eccentrically, discarding trousers in favour of a knee-length tunic and red silk underpants (which he sometimes also discarded when working on the scaffolding at the BBC).#13;#13;He was a man ruled by two equally strong forces: alongside his strong need for a religious framework to his life lay what one of his friends called his 'pantheistic lasciviousness', and his works of art reflect his struggle to unite and express these conflicting needs.#13;#13;This book attempts to draw together all the separate threads of the whole range of Gill's work and to present him as a whole man. Much of Gill's work, Dr Yorke feels, has been undervalued and it is time for a reassessment. The result is an entertaining, critical and informative work, abundantly illustrated with over 100 examples of Gill's work: wood and copper engravings, stone cutting, sculptures in stone and wood, typography, and for the first time, some of his erotic drawings.