Editing Eric Gill (section)

==Biography==
=== Early life ===
Eric Gill was born in 1882 in Hamilton Road, [[Brighton]], the second of the 13 children of the Reverend Arthur Tidman Gill and (Cicely) Rose King (died 1929), formerly a professional singer of [[light opera]] under the name Rose le Roi.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB |title=Gill, (Arthur) Eric Rowton |author= Fiona MacCarthy |author-link=Fiona MacCarthy |date= 25 September 2014 |orig-date= 23 September 2004 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/33403}}</ref> Arthur Tidman Gill had left the [[Congregational Union of England and Wales|Congregational Church]] in 1878 over doctrinal disagreements and became a minister of the [[Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion]], a grouping of Calvinist Methodists.<ref name="FMacCarthy">{{Cite book |author=Fiona MacCarthy |title=Eric Gill |year=1989 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=0-571-14302-4 |author-link=Fiona MacCarthy}}</ref>{{rp|7}} Arthur was born in the South Seas, where his father, George Gill, was a Congregational minister and missionary.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|5}} Eric Gill was the elder brother of the graphic artist [[MacDonald Gill|MacDonald "Max" Gill]] (1884–1947).<ref name="ODNB" /> Two of his other brothers, Romney and Cecil, became Anglican missionaries while their sister, Madeline, became a nun and also undertook missionary work.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|5}} The film historian [[David Gill (film historian)|David Gill]] was a nephew.

In 1897, the family moved to [[Chichester]], when Arthur Tidman Gill left the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, became a mature student at [[Chichester Theological College]] and joined the [[Church of England]].<ref name="ODNB" /><ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|19}} Eric Gill studied at Chichester Technical and Art School, where he won a Queen's Prize for perspective drawing and developed a passion for lettering.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|26}} Later in his life, Gill cited the Norman and medieval carved stone panels in [[Chichester Cathedral]] as a major influence on his sculpture.<ref name="JWilliams">{{cite web|url=https://www.apollo-magazine.com/eric-gills-fall-from-grace/|title=Eric Gill's fall from grace |author=James Williams |work=Apollo |date=27 April 2017|access-date=19 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="FMC2006">{{Cite news |author=Fiona MacCarthy |author-link=Fiona MacCarthy|date=22 July 2006|title=Written in stone |work=[[The Guardian]]|url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1826081,00.html|access-date=9 November 2017}}</ref> In 1900, Gill became disillusioned with Chichester and moved to London to train as an architect with the practice of [[W. D. Caröe]], specialists in ecclesiastical architecture with a large office close to [[Westminster Abbey]].<ref name="ODNB" />

=== London 1900–1907 ===
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 Art and Design|Central School of Arts and Crafts]] while continuing to work at Caröe's.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC">{{Cite book |author=Ruth Cribb & Joe Cribb |title=Eric Gill: Lust for Letter & Line |year=2011 |publisher=The British Museum Press |isbn=978-0-7141-1819-2}}</ref> The calligraphy course was run by [[Edward Johnston]], creator of the [[Johnston (typeface)|London Underground typeface]], who became a strong and lasting influence on Gill.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|42}} For a year, until 1903, Gill and Johnston shared lodgings at [[Lincoln's Inn]] in central London.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|49}} 
[[File:Gill bronze.jpg|thumb|upright|Rubbing of a memorial bronze created by Eric and Max Gill in 1905]]
During 1903, Gill gave up training in architecture to become a calligrapher, letter-cutter and monumental mason.<ref name="WatSCA">{{Cite web |title=Eric Gill archival and book collection |url=https://uwaterloo.ca/library/special-collections-archives/collections/gill-eric |access-date=18 May 2016 |website=University of Waterloo Library|date=14 July 2014 }}</ref> After making a copy of a small stone tablet from Westminster Abbey, Gill's first public inscription was for a stone memorial tablet, to a Percy Joseph Hiscock, in Chichester Cathedral.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|45}} Through a contact at the Central School, Gill was employed to cut the inscription for a tombstone at [[Brookwood Cemetery]] in Surrey.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|45}} Other work quickly followed, including an inscription for [[Holy Trinity, Sloane Street]], plus commissions from architects and private individuals, including [[Harry Graf Kessler|Count Kessler]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|93}} Kessler, on Johnston's recommendation, employed Gill to design chapter headings and title pages for the [[Insel Verlag]] publishing house.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> [[WHSmith|W.H. Smith & Son]] employed Gill to paint the lettering on the fascias of several of their bookshops including, in 1903, their Paris store.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|55}} For a time, Gill combined this work with his job at Caröe's but eventually the scale and frequency of these commissions required him to leave the company.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|88}} After Gill died, his brother, Evan, compiled an inventory of 762 inscriptions known to have been carved by him.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|45}}

In 1904 Gill married Ethel Hester Moore (1878–1961), a former art student, later known as Mary, the daughter of a businessman who was also the head verger at Chichester Cathedral.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|31}} Gill and Moore would eventually have three daughters and foster a son.<ref name="ODNB" /> After a short period in [[Battersea]] the couple moved into 20 [[Black Lion Lane]], [[Hammersmith]], in west London, near the, recently married, Johnstons' home on Hammersmith Terrace.<ref name="HFHBG 2015">{{cite journal |title=Eric Gill in Hammersmith |url=http://www.hfhbg.org.uk/newsletters/Newsletter-33-Win-15.pdf |journal=Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group Newsletter |issue=33 (Winter 2015) |access-date=13 August 2021 |page=6 |date=2015}}</ref> Artists associated with the [[Arts and Crafts movement]], including [[Emery Walker]], [[T. J. Cobden-Sanderson]] and [[May Morris]], were already based in the area, as were several printers, including the [[Doves Press]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|64}} Gill formed a business partnership with Lawrence Christie and recruited staff, including the 14-year-old [[Joseph Cribb]], to work in his studio.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|66}} Gill began giving lectures at the Central School and taught courses in monumental masonry and lettering for stonemasons at the [[City of Westminster College|Paddington Institute]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|102}} In 1905 he was elected to the [[Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society]] and joined the [[Fabian Society]] the following year.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|101}} After a period of intense involvement with the Fabians Gill became disillusioned with both them and the Arts and Craft movement. By 1907 he was writing and making speeches about the failures, both theoretical and practical, of the craft movement to resist the advance of mass production.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|93}}

In his diaries Gill records two affairs while living at Hammersmith. He had a brief affair with the family's maid while his wife was pregnant, and then a relationship with Lillian Meacham, who he had met through the Fabian Society.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|95}} Gill and Meacham visited the Paris Opera and [[Chartres Cathedral]] together and when their affair ended she became an apprentice in Gill's workshop and remained a family friend throughout his life.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|95}}

=== Ditchling Village 1907–1913 ===
In 1907 Gill moved with his family to Sopers, a house in the village of [[Ditchling]] in Sussex, which would later become the centre of an artists' community inspired by Gill. Although by April 1908 Gill had established a workshop in Ditchling and dissolved his business partnership with Lawrence Christie, he continued to spend time in London visiting clients and delivering lectures while his wife, Ethel, organised their household and smallholding in Sussex.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|120}} In London Gill would stay at his old lodgings in Lincoln's Inn with his brother Max or with his sister Gladys and Ernest Laughton, her future husband.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|122}} Gill continued to concentrate on lettering and inscriptions for stonework and employed a pupil for his signwriting business.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}} He also began to use wood-engraving techniques for his book illustration work, including a 1907 edition of ''Homer'' for Count Kessler.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}}
[[File:Gill Mother and Child 26 June 2018 2.jpg|thumb|''Mother and Child'', 1910]]
Late in 1909 Gill decided to become a sculptor.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}} Gill had always considered himself an artisan craftsman rather than an artist. He rejected the usual sculpture technique of first making a model and then scaling up using a [[pointing machine]] in favour of directly carving the final figure.<ref name="FMC2006"/><ref name="RCribb">{{cite web|url=http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=717 |title= Eric Gill at the Victoria and Albert Museum New Sculpture Display|year=2007 |author= Ruth Cribb |website=Antiques & Fine Art Magazine |access-date=18 February 2022}}</ref> His first sculptures included ''Madonna and Child'' (1910), which the art critic [[Roger Fry]] described as a depiction of "pathetic animalism",<ref name="M&C">{{Cite web |title=Madonna and Child |url=https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/999b28f1-8be7-32c8-90d9-c4fa5de356db/ |publisher=National Museum Wales |access-date=23 January 2022}}</ref> and the almost life-size work now known as ''[[Ecstasy (Gill sculpture)|Ecstasy]]'' (1911).<ref name="FMC2006" /> The models for ''Ecstasy'' were his sister Gladys Gill and her husband, Ernest Laughton.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|104}}<ref name="fm">{{cite news |author=Fiona MacCarthy |author-link=Fiona MacCarthy |date=17 October 2009|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/17/eric-gill-exhibition-fiona-maccarthy|title=Mad about sex |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=17 October 2009}}</ref> The incestuous relationships between Gill and Gladys that continued during their lives had already begun at this point.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|104}}<ref name="FMC2006" /> There is also some evidence, from Gill's own writings, of an incestuous relationship with Angela, another of his sisters.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|105}}<ref name="fm"/>

An early admirer of Gill's sculptures was [[William Rothenstein]] and he introduced Gill, who was fascinated by [[Architecture of India|Indian temple sculptures]], to the [[Sri Lanka|Ceylonese]] philosopher and art historian [[Ananda Coomaraswamy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vimeo.com/arrowsmith/cosmopolitanism-and-modernism|title=Video of a Lecture at London University detailing Gill's interest in Indian Sculpture |publisher=[[London University School of Advanced Study]]|date=March 2012}}</ref> Along with his friend and collaborator [[Jacob Epstein]], Gill planned the construction in the Sussex countryside of a colossal, hand-carved monument in imitation of the large-scale structures at [[Gwalior Fort]] in [[Madhya Pradesh]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=Rupert Richard Arrowsmith |title=Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African, and Pacific Art and the London Avant-Garde |date=2010 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-959369-9 |pages=74–103}}</ref> Throughout the second half of 1910 Epstein and Gill would meet on an almost daily basis, but eventually their friendship soured very badly. Earlier in the year they had held long discussions with Rothenstein and other artists, including [[Augustus John]] and [[Ambrose McEvoy]], about the formation of a religious brotherhood.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|102}} At Ditchling Epstein worked on elements of [[Oscar Wilde's tomb]] in [[Père Lachaise cemetery]], for which Gill designed the inscription before sending Joseph Cribb, who had moved to Ditchling in 1907, to Paris to carve the lettering.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|135}}<ref name="SSSmith" />

Gill had his first sculpture exhibition in 1911 at the Chenil Gallery in London.<ref name="M&C" /> Eight works by Gill were included in the Second Post-Impressionism Exhibition organised by Roger Fry at the [[Grafton Galleries]] in London during 1912 and 1913.<ref name="SSSmith">{{cite web|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T032249|title=Gill, (Arthur) Eric (Rowton)|year=2003|author=Stephen Stuart-Smith |website=Grove Art Online|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T032249|access-date=21 January 2022}}</ref>

By 1912, while Gill's main source of income was from gravestone inscriptions, he had also carved [[Madonna (art)|Madonna]] figures and was widely assumed, wrongly at that time, to be a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] artist. As such he was invited to an exhibition of Catholic art in Brussels and on route stayed for some days at the [[Benedictine]] monastery at [[Mont-César Abbey]] near [[Louvain]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|94}} Gill's experiences at Louvain, seeing the monks at prayer and hearing [[plainsong]] for the first time, persuaded him to become a Catholic.<ref name="DVBarrett">{{cite news |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/eric-gill-a-moral-problem/|title=Eric Gill: a moral problem |author=David V Barrett |date=5 August 2021|work=The Catholic Herald |access-date=12 February 2022}}</ref> In February 1913, after religious instruction from English Benedictines, Gill and Ethel were received into the Roman Catholic Church and Ethel changed her name to Mary.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|147}}

===Westminster Cathedral 1914–1918===
[[File:Westminster Cathedral, Stations of the Cross XIII.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Westminster Cathedral]], Stations of the Cross XIII]]
In 1913, after Gill and his wife became Catholics, they moved to Hopkin's Crank at [[Ditchling Common]], two miles north of Ditchling village.<ref name="ODNB" /> There Gill worked primarily for Catholic clients, such as his 1914 commission for the 14 [[Stations of the Cross]] in [[Westminster Cathedral]].<ref name="ODNB" /><ref name="PRogers">{{cite web|url=http://www.westminstercathedral.org.uk/tour_stations.php|title=Stations of the Cross|author=Patrick Rogers|year=2005|website=Westminster Cathedral|access-date=20 January 2022|archive-date=20 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120215654/http://www.westminstercathedral.org.uk/tour_stations.php|url-status=dead}}</ref> Gill was a surprising choice for the commission as he had only recently become a Catholic and had been a sculptor for only three years.<ref name="PDoyle">{{cite book |title=Westminster Cathedral 1895–1995 |author=Peter Doyle |publisher=Geoffrey Chapman |year=1995 |isbn=0225666847}}</ref> He was prepared to do the work more quickly and for a lower fee than more established sculptors would.<ref name="PDoyle"/> Gill modelled both the Christ figure in panel ten and a soldier in the second panel on himself.<ref name="PRogers"/> The Stations were not universally well received when they were erected, with criticism of their simple appearance and how starkly they contrasted with the rest of the cathedral interior.<ref name="PDoyle"/> A minority, which eventually included [[Nikolaus Pevsner]], praised their uncluttered design and unsentimental treatment of the subject.<ref name="PDoyle"/> They are now considered among Gill's most accomplished large-scale works.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|125}} Gill submitted proposals for decorations and works in other parts of the Cathedral building and eventually his design for the Chapel of Saint George and the English Martyrs was commissioned.<ref name="PDoyle"/>

Gill had been granted exemption from military service while working on the Stations of the Cross and when they were finished spent three months, from September 1918, as a driver at an [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] camp in Dorset before returning to Ditchling.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|138}}

=== Ditchling Common 1918–1924 ===
After World War I, together with [[Hilary Pepler]] and [[Desmond Chute]], Gill founded a guild association to promote the ideals of medieval, or pre-industrial, craft production, [[the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic]] at Ditchling.<ref name="RCribb"/><ref name="DVBarrett"/> The Guild's emphasis was on manual labour as opposed to more modern industrial methods, such that they did not use mechanised tools and considered craft working a form of holy worship.<ref name="DVBarrett"/> All members of the Guild were Catholics and most, including Gill, were also members of the [[Third Order of Saint Dominic]], a [[third order]] of the [[Dominican Order]].<ref name="DVBarrett"/> Lay members were not expected to follow the Dominicans' daily [[Liturgy of the Hours]], a schedule of prayers from the [[Angelus]] at 6am to [[Compline]] at 9pm, but the group at Ditchling, unusually, did so.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|146}} A chapel, designed by Gill, was built in the centre of the Guild's workshops and a wooden cross, with a Christ figure carved by Gill, was erected on a nearby hill.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|147}} Gill had also taken to wearing a [[Religious habit|habit]], often with a symbolic cord of chastity added.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|143}} In his family home, Gill determined that the household was to be free of modern appliances, with no bathroom, water drawn by a pump and cooking done on a log fire. One guest who brought a typewriter into the house was scolded for doing so.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|127}} The children did not attend school.<ref name="PNuttgens">{{Cite web|author=Patrick Nuttgens|date=6 January 1999|title=Petra Tegetmeier obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/jan/06/guardianobituaries|access-date=19 February 2016|website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

[[File:V & A Gill 1963 Plate 046 Handscrew G-clamp Plane.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Engraving by Gill from ''Woodwork'' published by the St. Dominic Press<ref name=Picture63>{{cite book |last1=Victoria and Albert Museum |title=The Engraved Work of Eric Gill (Picture Book) |date=1963 |publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/engraved-work-eric-gill-picture-book}}</ref>{{rp|3}}]]
Alongside the Guild, Pepler set up the St Dominic's Press with a 100-year old [[Stanhope press]] that he bought.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> The Press printed books and pamphlets promoting the ideals of the Guilds' traditional craft techniques and also provided an outlet for Gill's engravings and woodcut illustrations.<ref name="DVBarrett"/> Gill and Pepler together produced issues of ''The Game'', a small journal, mostly illustrated by Gill and containing articles on craft and social matters.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|122}} The views promoted by Gill and Pepler in ''The Game'' and their other publications were often deliberately provocative, anti-capitalist and opposed to industrialisation.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/>

Along with his Guild work and illustrations, Gill designed several war memorials in this period. These included the [[Trumpington War Memorial]] in Cambridgeshire, the [[Chirk War Memorial]] in north Wales, the memorial at Ditchling, and the wall panel recording 228 names of the fallen in the ante-chapel at [[New College, Oxford]].<ref name="ODNB" /><ref>{{NHLE |num=1245571|desc=Trumpington War Memorial |access-date=11 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=War Memorials Register: Chirk |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/17780 |access-date=3 April 2020 |website=Imperial War Museum}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1438295|desc=Ditchling War Memorial |access-date=11 January 2020}}</ref> Gill also created the memorial at [[Briantspuddle]] in Dorset and, with Chute and [[Hilary Stratton]], the monument at [[South Harting]].<ref>{{NHLE |num=1171702|desc=Briantspuddle War Memorial |access-date=7 March 2020}}</ref><ref name="Harting">{{NHLE |num=1438494|desc=Harting War Memorial |access-date=7 March 2020}}</ref> Beside the main entrance to the [[British Museum]], Gill designed and carved, with Joseph Cribb, the memorial inscription to the museum staff killed in the conflict and for the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], again with Cribb, he created the war memorial in that museum's entrance hall.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/46094 |title=War Memorials Register: Victoria and Albert Museum Staff − WW1|access-date= 10 February 2022|website= [[Imperial War Museum]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71756/memorial-tablet-commemorating-museum-personnel-memorial-tablet-gill-arthur-eric/|title=Memorial tablet commemorating Museum personnel killed in the First World War |website=Victoria & Albert Museum |access-date=12 February 2022}}</ref> Previously, in 1911, Gill had cut the inscription for the foundation stone of the British Museum's new King Edward VII building.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> Gill's other significant work from this period was the Stations of the Cross that he carved, with Chute, for the Church of St Cuthbert in the [[Manningham, Bradford|Manningham]] area of Bradford.<ref>{{NHLE |num=1376263 |desc=Church of St Cuthbert (Roman Catholic)|access-date=16 February 2022}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:South Harting War Memorial, St. George.jpg|St George, detail of South Harting war memorial, West Sussex
File:Ditchling War Memorial, showing inscription.jpg|Ditchling war memorial, Sussex
File:War Memorial, Chirk (geograph 2343527).jpg|[[Chirk War Memorial]], Wrexham
File:Victoria & Albert Museum staff war memorial.jpg|Victoria & Albert Museum staff war memorial
File:Briantspuddle war memorial close up 2.JPG|Detail of Briantspuddle war memorial, Dorset
</gallery>

Commissioned to produce a war memorial for the [[University of Leeds]], Gill produced a [[frieze]] depicting the [[Cleansing of the Temple]] but showing contemporary merchants as the money-changers Jesus was driving from the Temple.<ref name="Leeds">{{Cite web |title=Eric Gill – Christ driving the Moneychangers from the Temple |url=https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections/collection/970 |publisher=[[University of Leeds]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/22161 |title=War Memorials Register: University of Leeds − WWI Eric Gill Frieze |access-date= 10 February 2022|website= Imperial War Museum}}</ref> While fully aware that this was an inappropriate subject for a war memorial and one likely to cause great offence in a commercial centre such as Leeds, Gill persisted with the design nonetheless. The cartoon-like nature of the finished frieze, which included the Hound of St Dominic knocking over a cash till, only added to the ferocity of the resulting uproar.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|166}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/memory-and-mourning-on-sculpting-modern-memorials|title=Memory and mourning: on sculpting modern memorials|date=4 November 2021|author=Penelope Curtis|access-date=4 July 2022|website=Art UK}}</ref>

[[File:V & A Gill 1963 Plate 068 Nuptials of God.jpg|thumb|Nuptials of God]]
[[File:Gill Engravings 1929 053 049.jpg|thumb|Girl in Bath, 1923]]
Even before the Leeds memorial controversy, Gill's series of illustrations that included the ''Nuptials of God'', ''The Convert'' and ''Divine Lovers'' and his views on the sexual nature of Christianity were causing alarm within the Catholic hierarchy and distancing Gill from other members of the Ditchling community.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|164}} The series of life-drawings and prints of his daughters, including ''Girl in Bath'' and ''Hair Combing'' done at Ditchling, were considered among Gill's finest works. The sexual abuse Gill was perpetrating on his two eldest daughters during the same period only became known after his death.<ref name="FMC2006"/>

Professional craft workers joined the community, such that by the early 1920s the community had grown to 41 people, occupying several houses in the 20 acres surrounding the Guild's chapel and workshops.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|148}} Visitors to the Common included [[G. K. Chesterton]] and [[Hilaire Belloc]], whose [[Distributist]] ideas the Guild followed.<ref name="DVBarrett"/> Some young men who had been in combat in World War I came to stay for longer periods. These included Denis Tegetmeier, Reginald Lawson and the artist and poet [[David Jones (artist-poet)|David Jones]], who was to become engaged for a time to Gill's second daughter, Petra.<ref name="FMacCarthy"/>{{rp|151}} 
 
Gill became disillusioned with the direction of the Guild and fell out badly with his close friend Pepler, partly over the latter's wish to expand the community and form closer ties with Ditchling village and also because Gill's daughter Betty wanted to marry Pepler's son, David.<ref name="DVBarrett"/> Gill resigned from the Guild in July 1924 and, after considering other locations in Britain and Ireland, moved his family to a deserted monastery in the [[Black Mountains, Wales|Black Mountains]] of Wales.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|170}}

=== Capel-y-ffin 1924–1928 ===
In August 1924 the Gills left Ditchling and with two other families moved to a disused Anglican monastery, [[Llanthony Abbey]], at [[Capel-y-ffin]] in the Black Mountains of Wales.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|179}} The dilapidated building was high in an isolated valley about fourteen miles from [[Abergavenny]]. The monastery chapel was beyond repair, so a new one was quickly built and a [[Benedictine]] monk from [[Caldey Abbey]] was assigned to the group to hold a daily Mass.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|182}} [[Donald Attwater]] arrived at Capel-y-ffin shortly before the Gills, [[David Jones (artist-poet)|David Jones]] and René Hague, Joan Gill's future husband, all joined shortly after.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|182}} Joseph Cribb did not make the move to Wales but his younger brother, Lawrence Cribb (1898–1979), did and eventually became Gill's main assistant.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/>

Within a few weeks of arriving at Capel-y-ffin, Gill completed ''Deposition'', a black marble torso of Christ, and made ''The Sleeping Christ'', a stone head now in [[Manchester City Art Gallery]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|185}} In 1926 he completed a sculpture of ''Tobias and Sara'' for the library of [[St John's College, Oxford]].<ref name="Oxford">{{Cite web|url=https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/9404460.eric-gill-oxford/|title=Eric Gill in Oxford|author=Martin Stott |date= 8 December 2011 |access-date=16 January 2022 | website=[[Oxford Mail]]}}</ref> A war memorial altarpiece in oak relief for [[Rossall School]] was completed in 1927.<ref name="ODNB" />

When approached, in 1924, by [[Robert Gibbings]] to produce designs for the [[Golden Cockerel Press]] which he and his wife, Moira, had recently acquired, Gill initially refused to work with the couple as they were not Catholics. Gill changed his mind when they sought to publish a volume of poems by his sister Enid. The relationship between Gill and the Gibbingses grew such that throughout the following ten years Gill became the chief engraver and illustrator for the Golden Cockerel Press. Several of the resulting books, including ''The Song of Songs'' (1925), ''Troilus and Criseyde'' (1927), ''The Canterbury Tales'' (1928), and ''The Four Gospels'' (1931) are considered classics of specialist book production.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|187}} Gill created striking designs that unified and integrated illustrations into the text and also created a new typeface for the Press.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> The erotic nature of ''The Song of Songs'' and of the illustrations for [[Edward Powys Mathers]]'s ''Procreant Hymn'' caused considerable controversy in Catholic circles and led to protracted arguments between Gill and members of the clergy.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|211}}<ref name="PLord">{{cite book|author=[[Peter Lord (art historian)|Peter Lord]] |publisher=Parthian|year=2006|title=The Tradition A New History of Welsh Art 1400–1990 |isbn=978-1-910409-62-6}}</ref> The Golden Cockerel printed four of Gill's own books and he illustrated a further thirteen works for the press.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> In addition, between 1924 and his death, Gill wrote 38 books and illustrated a further 28.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> 

{{Gallery | width=275 | height= 275
| File:Gill Song of Songs 1925 Physick 318 His left hand under my head.jpg
  |His left hand under my head, from ''Song of Songs''
| File:V & A Gill 1963 Plate 105 Earth Waiting.jpg
  |Earth waiting, from ''The Procreant Hymn''
| File:Mankind 231096 (cropped).jpg
  | ''Mankind'', 1927
}}

The other key working relationship Gill established while at Capel-y-ffin was with [[Stanley Morison]], the Typographic Advisor to the [[Monotype Corporation]]. Morison persuaded Gill to apply the skills and knowledge he had gained in letter cutting to fonts suitable for mechanical reproduction.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|187}} It was at Capel that Gill designed the typefaces [[Perpetua (typeface)|Perpetua]] (1925) and [[Gill Sans]] (1927 onwards) and began work on [[Solus (typeface)|Solus]] (1929).<ref name="ODNB" /> Gill Sans is considered one of the most successful typefaces ever designed and remains in widespread use.<ref name="PLord"/>{{efn|The German diplomat [[Harry Graf Kessler]] visited Gill in Wales in January 1925.<ref name="Kessler">{{cite book|author=[[Harry Graf Kessler]] |editor=Charles Kessler | year = 2000 | title = The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan: 1918-1937 | location = London | publisher = Phoenix Press | isbn = 1-84212-061-1}}</ref>{{rp|245-246}} They had known each other before the [[First World War]] and Kessler wanted to persuade Gill to provide some calligraphy for a version of  [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Eclogues]]'', which was to be published by Kessler's Cranach Press. Kessler recorded his impressions of his friend in his diary: "He really is an extraordinary and noteworthy personality, with his great artistic talent,  utter repudiation of modern commercialism and eccentric piety translated into an all-embracing sensuousness".<ref>Kessler</ref>{{rp|257}}}}

While living at Capel-y-ffin, Gill spent many weekends at Robert and Moira Gibbings' home in [[Waltham St Lawrence]], enjoying the couple's unconventional and hedonistic lifestyle.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|191}} He was also spending sizable amounts of time in Bristol with a group of young intellectuals centred around [[Douglas Cleverdon]], a bookseller who published and distributed some of Gill's writings.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|192}} From 1925 onwards Gills' secretary, and mistress, was Elizabeth Bill. Bill owned a villa set in several acres in the French Pyrenees at [[Salies-de-Béarn]], which the Gills often visited.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|205}} The Gill family spent the winter of 1926–27 there and Gill did many of the engravings for ''Troilus and Criseyde''.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|215}} For the last months of 1927 he worked in a studio in London at Glebe Place in Chelsea creating the sculpture originally known as ''Humanity'' and now called ''Mankind''. The work, a giant torso, was modelled by Angela Gill and shown at the [[Goupil Gallery]] in London to considerable acclaim before being purchased by the artist [[Eric Kennington]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|220}}<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gill-mankind-n05388#tabs0__section-catalogue-entry |title=Catalogue entry: ''Mankind'' 1927-8 |year=2004 |website=Tate |access-date=8 March 2022}}</ref> Some years later Kennington offered the work to [[Whipsnade Zoo]]. The zoo refused the offer and the work is now in the [[Tate]] collection but displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|220}}<ref name="RCribb"/>

It had been too impractical to transport the stone for ''Mankind'' to Capel-y-ffin and it was clear that the site had become too remote and isolated for Gill's increasing commercial workload, and by May 1928 he was seeking a new home for his family and workshops.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|221}}<ref name="PLord"/>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175">
File:GillSansEG.svg|Gill Sans
File:Joanna Nova sample image.png|Joanna Nova
File:Perpetua_font_sample.png|Perpetua
File:GoldenCockerel-1.jpg|Golden Cockerel type
File:GillFaces.png|Three typefaces by Gill
</gallery>

===Pigotts, Buckinghamshire 1928–1934===
In October 1928, the Gill family moved to Pigotts at [[Speen, Buckinghamshire|Speen]], five miles from [[High Wycombe]] in Buckinghamshire. Around a quadrangle with a central pigsty were a large farmhouse housing Eric and Mary Gill, a cottage for Petra and her husband Denis Tegetmeier and another for Joanna and René Hague. Stables and barns were converted to studios and workshops and to house printing presses.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|225}} A chapel was fitted into one corner and licensed within six months for the saying of Mass.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|226}}
[[File:St James's Park Station sculptures – North Wind by Eric Gill.jpg|thumb|''North Wind'', St James's Park Station, London]]
The success of his 1928 exhibition at the Goupil Gallery had raised Gill's profile considerably and led to [[Charles Holden]] commissioning him to lead a team of five sculptors, including [[Henry Moore]], in creating some of the external sculptures for the new headquarters building of the [[Underground Electric Railways Company of London|London Electric Railway]], the forerunner of [[London Underground]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|228}} Gill started on the project within days of arriving at Pigotts and worked on site in London from November 1928 to carve three of eight relief sculptures on the theme of ''The Four Winds'' for the building.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|229}}

[[File:Belle Sauvage IV. Cropped from MacRobert 1957 Plate 46 Art-Nonsense Title Page.jpg|thumb|left|Belle Sauvage IV. From the title page of ''Art-Nonsense'']]
''Art-Nonsense And Other Essays by Eric Gill'' was published in 1929 and marked the first commercial use of the ''[[Perpetua (typeface)|Perpetua]]'' typeface. The frontispiece of the book had an engraving of ''Belle Sauvage'', an image of a naked women stepping out of some woods. The various versions of ''Belle Sauvage'' became among the most popular of Gill's illustrations and were modelled by [[Beatrice Warde]], a historian of typography, an executive of the Monotype Corporation and sometimes Gill's lover.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|232}} 

In 1929, [[Douglas Cleverdon]] published ''Engravings by Eric Gill''. This edition reproduced over a hundred of Gill's engravings on wood and metal up to the year 1927, and also included a complete chronological list of engravings, and a preface by Gill.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gill |first1=Eric |title=Engravings by Eric Gill |date=1929 |publisher=Douglas Cleverdon |location=Bristol |url=https://archive.org/details/eric-gill-selected-engravings-1929_2}}</ref>

By 1930 Gladys Gill had divorced her second husband after her first, Ernest Laughton, had been killed in the [[Battle of the Somme]], and she and Eric appear, from his diary entries, to have resumed their incestuous relationship.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|239}} Later that same year, the diaries record what Gill called his "experiments" with a dog.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|239}} In September 1930, he was taken seriously ill with a variety of symptoms, including amnesia, and spent several weeks in hospital.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|237}}

[[File:Prospero and Ariel (94216050).jpg|thumb|''Prospero and Ariel'', BBC Broadcasting House]]
[[File:Ariel between Wisdom and Gaiety.jpg|thumb|''Ariel between Wisdom and Gaiety'' with the Latin inscription ''obsculta'' (obey), BBC Broadcasting House]]
The following two years were among the most creatively accomplished of Gill's career, with several achievements. The Hague and Gill press was established at Pigotts in 1931 and eventually printed 16 of Gill's own books and booklets while he also illustrated six other books for the company.<ref name="Ruth&JoeC"/> For the Hague and Gill press he created the ''[[Joanna (typeface)|Joanna]]'' typeface, which was eventually adapted for commercial use by Monotype. He completed ''The Four Gospels'', widely considered to be the finest of all the books produced by the Golden Cockerel Press, and began working on the sculpture ''Prospero and Ariel'' for the BBC's [[Broadcasting House]] in London.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|243}} Throughout 1931 and into 1932, Gill worked on ''Prospero and Ariel'', and four other works for the BBC, on site in central London.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|245}} Carving in the open air up on scaffolding in the middle of London further increased Gill's public profile.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|247}} Although Gill had accepted the BBC's choice of subject matter when he took the commission, he did not see its relevance and frequently claimed that the figures he created represented God the Father and God the Son, the latter complete with the marks of the [[stigmata]].<ref name="RCribb"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gill-prospero-and-ariel-n04808 |title= Catalogue entry: ''Prospero and Ariel'' 1931 |website= Tate |access-date=8 March 2022}}</ref>

The [[Midland Hotel, Morecambe]] was built in 1932–33 by the [[London Midland & Scottish Railway]] to the [[Art Deco]] design of [[Oliver Hill (architect)|Oliver Hill]] and included [[Eric Gill works at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe|several works]] by Gill, [[Marion Dorn]], and [[Eric Ravilious]]. For the project Gill, with Lawrence Cribb and [[Donald Potter]], produced two seahorses, modelled as Morecambe shrimps, for the outside entrance; a round plaster relief on the ceiling of the circular staircase inside the hotel; a decorative wall map of the north-west of England; and a large stone relief of [[Odysseus]] being welcomed from the sea by [[Nausicaa]] for the entrance lounge.<ref name="tmh">{{cite book|title=The Midland Hotel. Morecambe's White Hope|author=Barry Guise & Pam Brook|publisher=Palatine Books |location=Lancaster, England|year=2008|isbn=978-1-874181-55-2}}</ref> While working in Morecambe, Gill met May Reeves, who became a regular visitor to Pigotts before moving there to run a small school and becoming Gill's resident mistress for several years.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|256}}

===Jerusalem and Pigotts, 1934–1938===
In 1934 Gill, with Lawrence Cribb, visited Jerusalem to work at the [[Palestine Archaeological Museum]], now the [[Rockefeller Archaeological Museum]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|263}}<ref name="IM">{{Cite web |title=Eric Gill, 1882–1940 |url=http://www.imj.org.il/rockefeller/eng/Gill.html |access-date=31 January 2016 |website=East Meets West: The Story of the Rockefeller Museum |publisher=[[Israel Museum]]}}</ref> There they carved a stone [[bas-relief]] of the meeting of Asia and Africa above the front entrance, together with ten stone reliefs illustrating different cultures, and a gargoyle fountain in the inner courtyard. He also carved stone signage throughout the museum in English, Hebrew and Arabic.<ref name="IM"/>
[[File:East Jerusalem, the Rockefeller Museum Rockefeller Museum P1190108.JPG|thumb|''Canaanite culture'', the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem, 1934]]
Gill's two visits to Jerusalem had a profound impact on his state of mind. He became increasingly unhappy with the impact of humanity upon the world and also become convinced of his own role as one chosen by God to change society.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|263}} Returning to England, Gill's mood of pessimism deepened with the death of his son-in-law, David Pepler, and he became increasingly antagonistic towards the Church and towards other artists.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|265}} Paradoxically, alongside this despondent world view Gill dropped his long-standing opposition to the use of modern home comforts and appliances. A bathroom was installed at Pigotts, a chauffeur and a gardener were appointed and his secretaries were allowed to use typewriters.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|266}} Religious observance was no longer expected of the workshop staff and among the additional apprentices and assistants Gill employed were non-Catholics, including [[Walter Ritchie]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|249}} Prudence Pelham, the daughter of the Earl of Chichester, became Gill's only female apprentice.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|250}} During his career, Gill employed at least twenty-seven apprentices including his nephew [[John Skelton (sculptor)|John Skelton]], [[Hilary Stratton]], [[Desmond Chute]], [[David Kindersley]] and [[Donald Potter]].<ref name="RCribb"/><ref name="Harting"/><ref>{{Cite book |author= Donald Potter |title=My Time with Eric Gill: A Memoir |publisher=Gamecock Press |year=1980 |isbn=0-9506205-1-3}}</ref>

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.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|272}} He became a supporter of [[social credit]] and later moved towards a [[socialist]] position.<ref name="mc">{{Cite book |author=Martin Ceadel |url=https://archive.org/details/pacifisminbritai0000cead/page/281 |title=Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945: The Defining of a Faith |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1980 |isbn=0-19-821882-6 |location=Oxford, England |pages=[https://archive.org/details/pacifisminbritai0000cead/page/281 281, 289–91, 295, 321]}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{Cite book |author=Charles Harrison |url=https://archive.org/details/englishartmodern0000harr/page/251 |title=English Art and Modernism 1900–1939 |publisher=Allen Lane |year=1981 |isbn=0-253-13722-5 |location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/englishartmodern0000harr/page/251 251–2]}}</ref> Gill became a regular speaker at left-wing meetings and rallies throughout the second half of the 1930s.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|273}} He was adamantly opposed to [[fascism]], and was one of the few Catholics in Britain to openly support the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Spanish Republicans]].<ref name="mc"/> Gill became a pacifist and helped set up the Catholic peace organisation Pax with [[E. I. Watkin]] and [[Donald Attwater]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=Patrick G. Coy |url=https://archive.org/details/revolutionofhear0000unse/page/76 |title=A Revolution of the Heart: Essays on the Catholic Worker |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-87722-531-1 |location=Philadelphia |page=[https://archive.org/details/revolutionofhear0000unse/page/76 76]}}</ref> Later, Gill joined the [[Peace Pledge Union]] and supported the British branch of the [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]].<ref name="mc"/>
[[File:2017 UN Geneva Open Day Council Chamber.jpg|thumb|''The Creation of Man'', 1938]]
Gill was commissioned to produce a sequence of seven bas-relief panels for the façade of The People's Palace, now the Great Hall of [[Queen Mary University of London]], which opened in 1936. In 1937, he designed the background of the first [[George VI of the United Kingdom|George VI]] [[definitive stamp]] series for the post office.<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Worsfold|title=Great Britain King George VI Low Value Definitive Stamps|publisher=The Great Britain Philatelic Society|year=2001|isbn=0-907630-17-0}}</ref><ref name="KRPress">{{Cite web |title=Eric Gill Postage Stamps by Type Designer |url=http://www.katranpress.com/stamps_gill_1_1.html |access-date=31 January 2018 |website=The Offices of Kat Ran Press}}</ref> In 1938 Gill was commissioned to create a mammoth artwork for the [[Palace of Nations, Geneva|Palace of Nations]] building in Geneva, as the British Government's gift to the [[League of Nations]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|275}} Gill's original proposal was to create a larger, international, version of the ''Moneychangers'' frieze that had caused such outrage in Leeds years earlier, but after objections from delegates to the League, submitted an alternative scheme. ''The Creation of Man'' flanked by ''Man's Gifts to God'' and ''God's Gifts to Man'' are three marble bas-reliefs in seventeen sections and constitute the largest single work Gill created during his career but are not considered among his finest works.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|276}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/es/node/36363 |title=Lobby of the Council Chamber |website=United Nations |access-date=11 March 2022}}</ref>

In 1935, Gill was elected an Honorary Associate of the [[Institute of British Architects]] and in 1937 was made a [[Royal Designers for Industry|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.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|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.<ref name="ODNB" />

===Final works, 1939–1940===
[[File:St. Peter's Catholic Church Gorleston.jpg|thumb|right|St Peter the Apostle at Gorleston-on-Sea, (1938–9)]]
[[File:Alter of the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, Westminster Cathedral, London.jpg|thumb|Altar of the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, Westminster Cathedral]]
During 1938 and 1939 Gill designed his only complete piece of architecture, the Catholic Church of St Peter the Apostle at [[Gorleston-on-Sea]].<ref name="ODNB" /> He designed the building around a central altar which, at the time, was considered a radical departure from the Catholic practice of the altar being at the east end of a church.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|280}}

Gill's final publications included ''Twenty-Five Nudes'' and ''Drawings from Life'' both of which included drawings of Daisy Hawkins, the teenage daughter of the Gills' housekeeper with whom Gill began an affair in 1937.<ref name="ODNB" /> The affair lasted two years during which time Gill drew her on an almost daily basis. When Hawkins was sent away from Pigotts, to the boarding house at Capel-y-ffin run by Betty Gill, Eric Gill followed her there to continue the relationship.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|284}}

Among Gill's last sculptures were a series of commissions for [[Guildford Cathedral]]. He spent time between October and December 1939 working at Guildford, on scaffolding carving the figure of [[John the Baptist]].<ref name="ODNB" /> He also worked on a set of panels depicting the stations of the cross for the Anglican St Alban's Church in Oxford, finishing the drawings three weeks before he died and completing nine of the pieces himself.<ref name="SSMJ">{{Cite web |title=Stations of the Cross by Eric Gill at St Alban's Church |url=http://ssmjchurchyard.org.uk/gill_stations_of_the_cross.php |access-date=12 January 2022 |website=Ss Mary & John Churchyard |archive-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220113093113/http://ssmjchurchyard.org.uk/gill_stations_of_the_cross.php |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Oxford"/> For the Chapel of Saint George and the English Martyrs, in Westminster Cathedral, Gill designed a low relief sculpture to occupy the wall behind the altar.<ref name="PDoyle"/> Gill's design showed a life-sized figure of Christ the Priest on the cross attended by Sir [[Thomas More]] and [[John Fisher]].<ref name="PDoyle"/> Gill died before the work was completed and Lawrence Cribb was tasked with finishing the piece by the Cathedral authorities who insisted he remove an element of Gill's original design, a figure of a pet monkey.<ref name="PDoyle"/> When the chapel was eventually opened to the public this censorship of Gills' last work was a matter of some considerable controversy.<ref name="PDoyle"/>

From the end of 1939 into the middle of 1940, Gill had a series of illnesses, including [[rubella]], but managed to write his autobiography that summer.<ref name="ODNB" /> Gill died of [[lung cancer]] in [[Harefield Hospital]] in [[Middlesex]] on the morning of Sunday 17 November 1940 and, after a funeral mass at the Pigotts chapel, was buried in Speen's Baptist churchyard.<ref name="ODNB" />

After Gill died an inventory of over 750 of his carved inscriptions was compiled, in addition to the over 100 stone sculptures and reliefs, 1000 engravings, the several typeface designs he created and his 300 printed works including books, articles and pamphlets.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|294}}