Carver, engraver, and typographer, born in Brighton, East Sussex, SE England, UK. He trained as an architect, but then took up letter-cutting, masonry, and engraving. After his first exhibition (1911) he maintained a steady output of carvings in stone and wood, engravings, and type designs. Among his main works is Prospero and Ariel (1931) above the entrance to Broadcasting House, London.
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882 – November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typographer and printmaker , mostly in engraving.
Biography
Gill was born in 1882 in Brighton, Sussex (now East Sussex). After the war, together with Hilary Pepler and Desmond Chute, 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. This was followed by the Gill Sans typeface in 1927–30, based on the sans-serif lettering originally designed by Johnston for London Underground. In the period 1930-31 Gill designed the typeface Joanna which he used to handset his book An Essay on Typography.
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. Other apprentices included Laurie Cribb, Donald Potter (see My time with Eric Gill: a memoir, Gamecock Press, 1980, ISBN 0-9506205-1-3) 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.
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 187156915X.
Gill died in Uxbridge, Middlesex in 1940.
Sexuality
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.
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;
In the 1990s, the BBC adopted Gill Sans for its logo and many of its on-screen television graphics.
Quotations
"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. — 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, 1980Pupils of Eric Gill
Gill's pupils include William Bloye, Don Potter and David Kindersley
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