issue 5 - Viva Lewes

Photograph: Alex Leith
Gill - Sans Controversy
An Eric Gill exhibition in Ditchling Museum doesn’t
dwell on the naughty bits
I’ve been fascinated by Eric Gill,
and especially the period he
lived in Ditchling, since I recently
read his biography, published in
1989, by Fiona MacCarthy. The
book, billed as ‘explosively scandalous’
in a Sunday Times quote
on its cover, did much to re-establish
the artistic reputation
of the Brighton-born arts-andcraftsman,
and a lot to destroy
his moral reputation, too.
When I’ve since mentioned Eric
Gill, most of the people who
have heard of him say things
like ‘isn’t he the one who buggered
his daughters?’ And ‘didn’t
he conduct sexual experiments
with his dog?’ They rarely mention
the important role he
played in the history of sculpting
in this country: how he influenced
Jacob Epstein to carve
straight from stone instead of
making bronze casts from clay
models; his own monumental
works in Leeds city centre and
Westminster Cathedral. The fact
that millions of people still read
his typeface, Gill Sans, every day.
(You are doing so at the moment).
Gill lived for nearly 20 years in
Ditchling, where he established
his artistic credentials, converted
to Catholicism, and organised
a self-styled religious community
around him, The Order of SS
Joseph and Dominic. The Order
was dedicated to hard work, an
ascetic lifestyle, and the creation
of sculptures, wood engravings,
headstones and pamphlets.
A number of important figures
from the arts and crafts movement
joined Gill in the village,
including Edward Johnston, Desmond
Chute and Hilary Pepler.
Gill left the village in 1924; the
Order didn’t fold until 1989.
Ditchling is still peppered with
artists’ and artisans’ studios, and
still continues to be a refuge for
those celebrities who can afford
its exorbitant house prices.
There’s currently a temporary
exhibition in the Ditchling Museum
about the important role
Gill has played in shaping Ditchling’s
personality. I arrive in the
village - my first visit - over an
hour before the museum opens.
There’s plenty to occupy me.
Gill was originally a letter-cutter,
and you can see examples
of his work on a sundial outside
the splendid Norman church,
on a badly weathered wooden
board in the graveyard, and on
a war memorial on the village
green. I also visit Sopers, his first
house, in the village centre, and
Hopkins Crank, his second, a
big farmhouse two miles down
the road on Ditchling Common.
Both now-privately-owned
houses are adorned, appropriately
enough, with engraved
stone plaques, celebrating Gill’s
time living in them.
So far, so prosaic. But what of
the artist’s enigmatic, colourful
and controversial personality?
I’m expecting to find more
about that in the museum, and
I do. This isn’t an exhibition of
his sculptures: it’s a collection
of little tit-bits from his studio,
some of which are very revealing.
A self-made calendar to
help him cross off the days before
his wedding to Mary. The
original design for his ‘Stations
of the Cross’ low-relief panels
in Westminster Cathedral, with
a self-portrait as Christ in the
10th station ‘Jesus stripped of
his clothes’. One of his smocks,
and an anecdote about how he
shocked passers-by by wearing
no underwear underneath it
while up a ladder carving Prospero
and Ariel on the façade of
BBC building in Langham Place.
A self-penned, self-designed
pamphlet called ‘Trousers and
the Most Precious Ornament’,
berating the fact that the modern-day
male organ has come to
be tucked away inside clothing.
The original plan for the sculpture
‘Mulier’, rejected by Roger
Fry (of all people) for its ‘explicit,
erotic nature.’
There’s nothing, of course, about
his sexual aberrations, details of
which biographer MacCarthy
culled from his own diaries, even
after they had been censored by
his wife after his death. Nothing
about the dilemma voiced by the
chattering classes after the book
was published, whether one
should take an interest in the art
of a man who would nowadays
be jailed for his incestuous perversions.
No matter, you would
hardly expect there to be. As I
leave the museum, I spot several
copies of the biography in its little
shop. If you go, don’t forget
to buy one on the way out. V
Alex Leith
Eric Gill and Ditchling - The
Workshop Tradition, Ditchling
Museum, until October 7
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