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the museum of art

ERIC GILL

An Exhibit of Typographic Designs

ill was born in 1882 in Brighton,


Sussex (now East Sussex) and in
1897 the family moved to Chichester. He
studied at Chichester Technical and Art
School, and in 1900 moved to London to
train as an architect with the practice of
W.D. Caroe, specialists in ecclesiastical
architecture. Frustrated with his training, he took evening classes in stonemasonry at Westminster Technical Institute and in calligraphy at the Central
School of Arts and Crafts, where Edward
Johnston, creator of the London Underground typeface, became a strong influence. In 1903 he gave up his architectural training to become a calligrapher,
letter-cutter and monumental mason.
In 1904 he married Ethel Hester
Moore (18781961), and in 1907 he
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. There he started producing sculpture his first public success was Mother and Child (1912). A self-described
disciple of the Ceylonese philosopher

and art historian Ananda Coomaraswa- sphere and was too far from London,
my, Gill was fascinated during this pe- where most of his clients were. In 1928
riod by Indian temple sculpture. Along he moved to Pigotts at Speen near High
with his friend and collaborator Jacob Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where
Epstein, he planned the construction he set up a printing press and lettering
in the Sussex countryside of a colossal, workshop. He took on a number of aphand-carved monument in imitation of prentices, including David Kindersley,
the large-scale Jain structures at Gwalior who in turn became a successful sculpFort in Madhya Pradesh, to which he tor and engraver, and John Skelton
had been introduced by the Indiaphile (192399), his nephew, and also noted
William Rothenstein.
as an important letterer and sculpIn 1913 he moved to Hopkins Crank tor. Other apprentices included Laurie
at Ditchling Common, two miles north Cribb, Donald Potter and Walter Ritchie.
of the village. In 1914 he produced Others in the household included Denis
sculptures for the stations of the cross in Tegetmeier, married to Gills daughter
Westminster Cathedral. In the same year Petra, and Rene Hague, married to the
he met the typographer Stanley Morison. other daughter, Joanna.
After the war, together with Hilary PepIn 1932 Gill produced a group of
ler and Desmond Chute, Gill founded sculptures, Prospero and Ariel, and othThe Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic ers for the BBCs Broadcasting House in
at Ditchling, where his pupils included London. In 1937, he designed the backthe young David Jones, who soon began ground of the first George VI definitive
a relationship with Gills daughter, Petra. stamp series for the Post Office, and in
In 1924 he moved to Capel-y-ffin 1938 produced The Creation of Adam,
in Wales, where he set up a new work- three bas-reliefs in stone for the Palace of
shop, to be followed by Jones and other Nations, the League of Nations building
disciples. In 1925 he designed the Per- in Geneva, Switzerland. During this peripetua typeface, with the uppercase based od he was made a Royal Designer for Inupon monumental Roman inscriptions, dustry, the highest British award for defor Morison, who was working for the signers, by the Royal Society of Arts and
Monotype Corporation.
became a founder-member of the newly
An in-situ example of Gills design and established Faculty of Royal Designers
personal cutting of
for Industry.
his Perpetua typeface his beliefs and practices were A deeply religious
can be found in the
man, largely folby no means orthodox
nave of Poling church
lowing the Roman
in West Sussex, on a wall plaque commemo- Catholic faith, his beliefs and practices
rating the life of Sir Harry Johnston. The Per- were by no means orthodox. He published
petua design was followed by the Gill Sans numerous essays on the relationship betypeface in 192730, based on the sans serif tween art and religion. He also produced a
lettering originally designed for the London number of erotic engravings. His personal
Underground. (Gill had collaborated with diaries describe his sexual activity in great
Edward Johnston in the early design of the detail including the fact that Gill sexually
Underground typeface, but dropped out of abused his own children, had an incestuous
the project before it was completed.) In the relationship with his sister and performed
period 193031 Gill designed the typeface sexual acts on his dog. This aspect of Gills
Joanna which he used to hand-set his book, life was little known until publication of the
An Essay on Typography.
1989 biography by Fiona MacCarthy. The
Gill soon tired of Capel-y-ffin, com- earlier biography by Robert Speaight mening to feel that it had the wrong atmo- tioned none of it.

the museum of art


As the revelations about Gills private life reverberated, there was a reassessment of his personal and artistic
achievement. As his recent biographer
sums up:
After the initial shock, as Gills history of adulteries, incest, and experimental connection with his dog became
public knowledge in the late 1980s, the
consequent reassessment of his life and
art left his artistic reputation strengthened. Gill emerged as one of the twentieth centurys strangest and most
original controversialists, a sometimes
infuriating, always arresting spokesman
for mans continuing need of God in an
increasingly materialistic civilization,
and for intellectual vigour in an age of
encroaching triviality.
Gill died of lung cancer in Harefield
Hospital, Hillingdon (formerly Middlesex), in 1940. He was buried in Speen
churchyard in the Chilterns, near Princes Risborough, the village where his last
artistic community had practised. His
papers and library are archived at the
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA.
Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed
by Eric Gill.
The original design appeared in 1926
when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where
Gill painted the fascia over the window
in sans-serif capitals that would later be
known as Gill Sans. In addition, Gill had
sketched a design for Cleverdon, intended as a guide for him to make future notices and announcements.
Gill further developed it into a complete font family after Stanley Morison commissioned the development of
Gill Sans to combat the families of Erbar, Futura and Kabel which were being
launched in Germany during the latter
1920s. Gill Sans was later released in 1928
by Monotype Corporation.
Gill Sans became popular when in
1929 Cecil Dandridge commissioned Eric
Gill to produce Gill Sans to be used on
the London and North Eastern Railway
for a unique typeface for all the LNERs
posters and publicity material.
Gill was a well established sculptor,
graphic artist and type designer, and the
Gill Sans typeface takes inspiration from
Edward Johnstons Johnston typeface for
London Underground, which Gill had
worked on while apprenticed to Johnston.
Eric Gill attempted to make the ultimate

Examples of typefaces by Eric Gill

legible sans-serif text face. Gill Sans was


designed to function equally well as a text
face and for display. It is distributed as a
system font in Mac OS X and is bundled
with certain versions of Microsoft products as Gill Sans MT.
The uppercase of Gill Sans is modelled on the monumental Roman capitals
like those found on the Column of Trajan,
and the Caslon and Baskerville typefaces.
The capital M from Gill Sans is based
on the proportions of a square with the
middle strokes meeting at the centre
of that square. The Gill Sans typeface
family contains fourteen styles and has
less of a mechanical feel than geometric
sans-serifs like Futura, because its proportions stemmed from Roman tradition. Unlike realist sans-serif typefaces
including Akzidenz Grotesk and Univers
the lower case is modelled on the lowercase Carolingian script. The Carolingian
influence is noticeable in the two-story
lowercase a, and g. The lowercase t is
similar to old-style serifs in its proportion and oblique terminus of the vertical
stroke. Following the humanist model
the lowercase italic a becomes single
story. The italic e is highly calligraphic,
and the lowercase p has a vestigial calligraphic tail reminiscent of the italics of
Caslon and Baskerville. Gill Sans serves
as a model for several later humanist
sans-serif typefaces including Syntax
and FF Scala Sans. An Infant variety of
the typeface with single-story versions
of the letters a and g also exists.

The basic glyph shapes do


not look consistent across font
weights and widths, especially
in Extra Bold and Ultra Bold
weights, and Extra Condensed
width. However, even in lighter
weights, some letters do not look
consistent. For example, in letters p and q, the top strokes of
counters do not touch the top of
the stems in Light, Bold, Heavy
fonts, but touch the top of the
stems in Book, Medium fonts.
Joanna is a transitional
serif typeface designed by Eric
Gill (18821940) in the period
193031, and named for one of
his daughters. The typeface was
originally designed for proprietary use by Gills printing shop
Hague & Gill. The type was first
produced in a small quantity by
the Caslon Foundry for hand composition. It was eventually licensed for public
release by the Monotype foundry in 1937.
In designing Joanna, Gill took inspiration from the types of Robert Granjon
(15131589). The underlying armature
of both the roman and italics bear strong
similarities with Grandjons type, yet the
spare, sharp squared serifs and moderate
contrast of strokes, have a 20th century
modernist feeling. The italics are more
vertical than Grandjons with only a 3
slope. The face is, as Gill described it himself a book face free from all fancy business. Similarities can be seen with Gills
earlier typefaces Cockerel and Perpetua.
A more recent face, FF Scala designed
in 1990 by the Dutch type designer Martin Majoor (born 1960) is similar in its
geometric simplicity combined with the
old style letterform. Gill chose Joanna for
setting An Essay on Typography, a book
by Gill on his thoughts on typography,
typesetting, and page design.

Free Admission
April 24-30
26th Street and the Benjamin
Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130

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