From the Jerusalem Diary of Eric Gill

Product Information

Gill's religious beliefs did not limit his sexual activity, which included several extramarital affairs. His religious views contrast with his deviant sexual behaviour, including, as described in his personal diaries, the sexual abuse of his daughters, an incestuous relationship with at least one of his sisters and also sexual experiments with a dog. Since these revelations became public in 1989, there have been a number of calls for works by Gill to be removed from public buildings and art collections.

There seem to be several arguments here on a number of different areas. The reason that Davey wrote the books was to be able to get close to children. This is very different to an artist who did terrible things but didn't produce their art to facilitate their crimes. In these cases we can differentiate between the person and the art, but in the case of Davey, the person, the work and the crime are the same thing. But I think Hepburn may have one ace to play, in the form of Cathie Pilkington RA, a sculptor he has commissioned to make a piece responding to Gill to run alongside the show. Her installation is, from what I have seen of it so far, going to be remarkable. (Its title is Doll for Petra, after the strange object we met at the start of this piece: Pilkington was the woman with the striking haircut and forthright manner at the workshop day.) Even better, its maker, who is deeply engaged with Gill’s work, is unafraid to attempt to articulate both its mysteries and its controversies. Born in Brighton, Arthur Eric Rowton Gill is one of 13 children. He studies at Chichester Technical and Art School, before becoming a trainee architect in London.

The Diary Review archive

While the pictures weren’t pornographic in the classic sense, they were definitely kinky. One in particular showed a large-breasted girl forced into a cleavage-revealing corset. Another showed the same girl with her breasts exposed, weeping in fear. When the new sketches were finally exhibited in 2013, the curators said they showed a darker, obsessional side to Lowry. This “among many others” tone is in stark contrast to his previous “central” position. Observer journalist Rachel Cooke, who took part in that 2017 review, described the museum then as “a small but beautiful gallery dedicated mostly to displays of work by Eric Gill”. Frustrated with his architectural training, Gill took evening classes in stonemasonry at the Westminster Technical Institute and, from 1901, in calligraphy at the Central School of Arts and Crafts while continuing to work at Caröe's. [5] The calligraphy course was run by Edward Johnston, creator of the London Underground typeface, who became a strong and lasting influence on Gill. [2] :42 For a year, until 1903, Gill and Johnston shared lodgings at Lincoln's Inn in central London. [2] :49 Rubbing of a memorial bronze created by Eric and Max Gill in 1905 Christie’s auctioneers are set to stop selling work by Eric Gill, the controversial British artist, because of his problematic personal life and sexual perversions. It was only afterward that people began to examine his art and life more closely. What they found was a personality less suited to art and more suited to a serial killer.

One of the most widely used British typefaces, Gill Sans, used in the classic design system of Penguin Books and by the London and North Eastern Railway and later British Railways is a font that speaks volumes. It is also a visual system haunted by the legacy of its creator aka English sculptor, typeface designer, and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, Eric Gill who was a serial criminal. Survivors couldn't pray at the Stations of the Cross. They were done by a paedophile. The very hands that carved the stations were the hands that abused. As for bringing poets persecuted for their sexuality into the debate - sorry, how is this in any way relevant? Homosexual poets from ages gone by were persecuted due to the ignorance of the time - I pray that there will never be a time when sexually abusing defenceless children is deemed acceptable. Comparing the two situations is a huge insult to all non heterosexuals accross the world is it not?The author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding is one of the few novelists to write a book kids enjoy studying at school. He was also an alcoholic and frequently battled internal demons, some of which may have been connected to the time he tried to rape a 15-year-old. The diaries also revealed a dark dimension to some of Gill’s sculptures. A semi-pornographic one in the Tate Britain known as F—king was discovered to be of Gill’s younger sister Gladys and her husband. At the time it was made, Gill was having an incestuous fling with Gladys. Sketches he made of his prepubescent daughter bathing also turned out to have been done around the time he was abusing her. a b c d e Ruth Cribb (2007). "Eric Gill at the Victoria and Albert Museum New Sculpture Display". Antiques & Fine Art Magazine . Retrieved 18 February 2022.

He abused his maids, his prostitutes, animals, he was having sex with everything that moved - a very deranged man sexually." Ethicist Baruch Cohen once wrote that using data from Nazi experiments that involved cruelty and torture was like washing with a bar of soap made from concentration camp dead. His Perpetua typeface with the uppercase based upon monumental Roman inscriptions was first designed in 1925 and it was first made public around 1929. Gill's 1935 essay All Art is Propaganda marked a complete reversal of his previous belief that artists should not concern themselves with political activity. [2] :272 He became a supporter of social credit and later moved towards a socialist position. [36] In 1934, Gill contributed art to an exhibition mounted by the left-wing Artists' International Association, and defended the exhibition against accusations in The Catholic Herald that its art was "anti-Christian". [37] Gill became a regular speaker at left-wing meetings and rallies throughout the second half of the 1930s. [2] :273 He was adamantly opposed to fascism, and was one of the few Catholics in Britain to openly support the Spanish Republicans. [36] Gill became a pacifist and helped set up the Catholic peace organisation Pax with E. I. Watkin and Donald Attwater. [38] Later, Gill joined the Peace Pledge Union and supported the British branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. [36] The Creation of Man, 1938 When it comes to art and life, and to what degree they can or should be separated, he believes people fall on a spectrum. “At one end, there are those who believe biography to be irrelevant; and at the other, there are those who believe he was a disgusting man, and wonder why he should be shown at all. Most are in the middle. Even within the team at Ditchling, different people feel different things. But in the end, the only reason for doing the show is because he is an extraordinary artist.”But what do we do? Do we turn our eyes away from his wonderful works of art or do we, as I think we should, try to explore further and see how they were arrived at." a b "Eric Gill archival and book collection". University of Waterloo Library . Retrieved 18 May 2016.

With this in mind, Hepburn’s decision to mount Eric Gill: The Body might be thought rather brave – and certainly this is the word I hear repeatedly from those who support his project. “My overriding sense is that this is quite brave,” says Alistair Brown, a policy officer at the Museums Association. “It’s a test case.” But still, I wonder. Is it courageous, or is it merely foolhardy? And what consequences will it have in the longer run both for Gill’s work and those institutions that are its guardians? Is it possible that Hepburn, in fighting his own museum’s “self-censorship”, will start a ripple effect that ultimately will see more censorship elsewhere, rather than less? And once Gill is dispensed with, where do we go next? Where does this leave, say, artists such as Balthus and Hans Bellmer? Even if their private lives were less reprehensible than Gill’s, their work – that of Balthus betrays a fixation on young girls, while Bellmer is best known for his lifesize pubescent dolls – is surely far more unsettling. Chaucer, Geoffrey (1932). Troilus and Criseyde. Translated by Krapp, George Philip. New York: Literary Guild. Eric Gill at work on the carvings that decorate Broadcasting House in London. Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty ImagesIn 1935, Gill was elected an Honorary Associate of the Institute of British Architects and in 1937 was made a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest British award for designers, by the Royal Society of Arts, and became a founder-member of the RSA's Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry when it was established in 1938. [2] :271 In April 1937, Gill was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy. Quite why Gill was offered, let alone accepted, these honours from institutions he had openly reviled throughout his career is unclear. [1] Final works, 1939–1940 [ edit ] St Peter the Apostle at Gorleston-on-Sea, (1938–9) Altar of the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, Westminster Cathedral There was no consideration given to taking these down. A work of art stands in its own right. Once it has been created it takes on a life of its own." The books should continue to be published and used for what they are. By the law of averages there are nasty people working in banks for example, but there is no suggestion that we should close our accounts. Why not use the royalties to help a charity working in this area - Childline for example. As a sculptor and engraver Gill balances precariously between the deeply spiritual and provocatively secular. He lurches from frenetic action to repose. This clash of flesh and spirit makes him an infuriating, fascinating man. Whatever his own sins, Gill was not to be deflected from his solemnly idealistic life plan "to make a cell of good living in the chaos of the world". The years in Chichester gave him his strong sense of the enclosed and godly city, bastion against civilisation's many evils. He was to feel the same way about Chartres. Gill responded to this ideal of virtuous apartness in a sequence of notoriously rigorous art and craft communities from which he fulminated against the 20th-century horrors of typewriters, Bird's custard powder, contraception and men wearing the trousers that constricted and degraded "man's most precious ornament".