The Virgin, 1911-1912
Eric Gill
This sculpture, commissioned by Roger Fry for his garden near Guildford, stood for many years in the Napoleon Garden in Holland Park. The work is known locally as "The Maid" - presumably an adjustment made at some stage to save someone's blushes - but whatever the reason, the title stuck. Fry did not like Gill's first attempt so this is the second. His drawings for the work show a naked boy with arms raised behind his head and one foot forward, but also a girl wearing only a long skirt and with her hands on her thighs. Gill took elements from both and amalgamated them to produce a maquette in clay that Fry accepted. An inscription shows that the drawings of the girl were made from Gill's sister, Angela. The finished sculpture was shown in Roger Fry's Grafton Gallery in 1912 along with Matisse's La Danse.
Sadly the features have now lost much of their definition due to weathering and the piece is less attractive than it once was. To protect it from further deterioration a temporary move to a more sheltered spot was carried out in 1994, and it has now found a permanent home in Holland Park 's bright, new Café. There are plans for an unfinished relief by Epstein to join it there in the near future. The removal of Gill's "Virgin" from the Napoleon Garden led to a re-evaluation of the use that was being made of that small area of the Park, and its eventual emergence as a space dedicated to the showing of contemporary sculpture. |
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- A large collection of Gill's works is held by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas at Austin. The Tate also holds examples.
See also "Eric Gill: The Sculpture" by Judith Collins. Herbert Press 1998.
Biographical Note -
Eric Gill (1882 - 1940) is probably remembered most for his typographical work. The typefaces he designed include Gill Sans and Perpetua and many are still in use. He was also an engraver, calligrapher and sculptor. Many Londoners will be familiar with the work he made for the BBC building in Langham Place, Prospero and Ariel, and his fourteen reliefs for Westminster Cathedral depicting the Stations of the Cross (1914-18). His engravings have a precision, economy and graphic fluency that was, and is, much admired. Some aspects of his personal life were less admirable: Gill was eccentric not only in his dress sense (favouring loose smock-like garments and brightly coloured socks) but also in his views on sexuality. He believed in complete sexual freedom, and this led him not only to repeated infidelities but also to experiment with both incest and bestiality - not a lifestyle that can have sat comfortably with his Catholicism. Although he had a strongly spiritual side it did not find conventional expression, and his work was sometimes reviled for its "pantheistic lasciviousness". Demonstrating an ambivalent mixture of freedom and restraint Gill was fanatically tidy with the tools on his workbench and kept extremely detailed diaries, recording not only the hours spent on each work but also his various infidelities. In spite of the unorthodox and controversial aspects of his life, this cranky but vulnerable artist left a lasting impression on twentieth century printing. |
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