Edward Maufe, St Thomas the Apostle, 1933–4, with Eric Gill, Calvary Group, 1933, Hanwell, London. By the 1930s ambitious modernism in church architecture tended to exclude individual artist-craftswomen and men. Francis X. Velarde and Nugent Cachemaille-Day designed every aspect of a church’s interior decoration themselves. But Edward Maufe, influenced by Swedish architecture and by his wife Prudence who from 1915 was an interior decoration consultant at Heals and organised art and craft shows in the firm’s Mansard Gallery, tried both to be modern and to work collaboratively with artists and makers. The results were curious. His church of St Thomas the Apostle at Hanwell (1933–34) was an exemplary building with a Calvary group by Gill on the external East wall and keystone sculptures over doors by Vernon Hill. Inside there is plenty of individual work—a font carved by Vernon Hill, wood panelled screens carved with angels, fish, squirrels and birds by James Woodford, cross and candlesticks by the Artificers’ Guild, a mural of the Adoration in the Children’s Corner by Elizabeth Starling and small stained-glass windows by Moira Forsyth. His collaborators were given their freedom but on a miniaturised scale that ended up looking reticent almost to the point of invisibility. —Tanya Harrod, 1999

Edward Maufe, St Thomas the Apostle, 1933–4, with Eric Gill, Calvary Group, 1933, Hanwell, London.

By the 1930s ambitious modernism in church architecture tended to exclude individual artist-craftswomen and men. Francis X. Velarde and Nugent Cachemaille-Day designed every aspect of a church’s interior decoration themselves. But Edward Maufe, influenced by Swedish architecture and by his wife Prudence who from 1915 was an interior decoration consultant at Heals and organised art and craft shows in the firm’s Mansard Gallery, tried both to be modern and to work collaboratively with artists and makers. The results were curious. His church of St Thomas the Apostle at Hanwell (1933–34) was an exemplary building with a Calvary group by Gill on the external East wall and keystone sculptures over doors by Vernon Hill. Inside there is plenty of individual work—a font carved by Vernon Hill, wood panelled screens carved with angels, fish, squirrels and birds by James Woodford, cross and candlesticks by the Artificers’ Guild, a mural of the Adoration in the Children’s Corner by Elizabeth Starling and small stained-glass windows by Moira Forsyth. His collaborators were given their freedom but on a miniaturised scale that ended up looking reticent almost to the point of invisibility.

—Tanya Harrod, 1999

#Edward Maufe      #Eric Gill      #Tanya Harrod      #Architecture      #Sculpture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill at work on the Calvary Group for St Thomas the Apostle church, Hanwell, London, 1933.

Eric Gill at work on the Calvary Group for St Thomas the Apostle church, Hanwell, London, 1933.

#Eric Gill      #Edward Maufe      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

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Eric Gill, The Sower, Entrance Hall, Broadcasting House, London, 1932. Corsham stone. Eric Gill, working as a sculptor and as a letter cutter, emerges as the [20th-century British] craftsman who was most successfully involved in architectural commissions. Gill was always conscious of the redundancy of architectural sculpture and his attitude to his secular public commissions was mildly ironic. In 1929 he was commissioned to make sculptures for G. Val Myers’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place. These included figures of Prospero and Ariel over the main doorway and a sculpture of the Sower for the entrance hall. Writing to his brother Cecil he explained that the subject was a pun—the Sower or Broadcaster. ‘Comic thought when you consider the quality of BBC semination with the efforts of a simple countryman sowing corn! However it’s their idea, not mine. Mine not to reason why … mine simply to carve a good image of a broadcaster.’ —Tanya Harrod, 1999

Eric Gill, The Sower, Entrance Hall, Broadcasting House, London, 1932. Corsham stone.

Eric Gill, working as a sculptor and as a letter cutter, emerges as the [20th-century British] craftsman who was most successfully involved in architectural commissions. Gill was always conscious of the redundancy of architectural sculpture and his attitude to his secular public commissions was mildly ironic. In 1929 he was commissioned to make sculptures for G. Val Myers’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place. These included figures of Prospero and Ariel over the main doorway and a sculpture of the Sower for the entrance hall. Writing to his brother Cecil he explained that the subject was a pun—the Sower or Broadcaster. ‘Comic thought when you consider the quality of BBC semination with the efforts of a simple countryman sowing corn! However it’s their idea, not mine. Mine not to reason why … mine simply to carve a good image of a broadcaster.’

—Tanya Harrod, 1999

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Tanya Harrod      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill, Ariel Piping to the Children, Ariel Learns Celestial Music and Ariel Between Wisdom and Gaiety, Broadcasting House, London, 1931–2. Corsham stone reliefs.

Eric Gill, Ariel Piping to the Children, Ariel Learns Celestial Music and Ariel Between Wisdom and Gaiety, Broadcasting House, London, 1931–2. Corsham stone reliefs.

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

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Eric Gill, Prospero and Ariel, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, 1932–3. Caen stone. Gill began work on this group on 8 January 1932 … He finished finally on 6 March and spent 10 and 13 March all day at the BBC for press interviews. The group was unveiled on 13 March, but not before the Governors of the BBC had asked for and received a reduction in the size of Ariel’s genitals. On 23 March the Manchester Guardian reported that a Tory MP, Mr Mitcheson (Member for St Pancras) had protested in the House of Commons the day before about this sculpture. Mr Mitcheson ‘had asked the Home Secretary if he would instruct the police to compel the directorate of the British Broadcasting Corporation to remove immediately the statue recently placed over the front entrance of Broadcasting House in Portland Place as being objectionable to public morals and decency’. The Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour declined to act and the statue stayed. Mr Mitcheson had gained his fifteen minutes of fame and joined the ranks of politicians who regularly ask for the removal of new sculptures on the grounds of public decency. —Judith Collins, 1998

Eric Gill, Prospero and Ariel, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, 1932–3. Caen stone.

Gill began work on this group on 8 January 1932 … He finished finally on 6 March and spent 10 and 13 March all day at the BBC for press interviews. The group was unveiled on 13 March, but not before the Governors of the BBC had asked for and received a reduction in the size of Ariel’s genitals. On 23 March the Manchester Guardian reported that a Tory MP, Mr Mitcheson (Member for St Pancras) had protested in the House of Commons the day before about this sculpture. Mr Mitcheson ‘had asked the Home Secretary if he would instruct the police to compel the directorate of the British Broadcasting Corporation to remove immediately the statue recently placed over the front entrance of Broadcasting House in Portland Place as being objectionable to public morals and decency’. The Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour declined to act and the statue stayed. Mr Mitcheson had gained his fifteen minutes of fame and joined the ranks of politicians who regularly ask for the removal of new sculptures on the grounds of public decency.

—Judith Collins, 1998

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Judith Collins      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill at work on Prospero and Ariel group at the BBC, 1933. Gill’s work for the BBC in 1931–32 reveals that at times he learned to display some caution in his message, and to keep it more covert. He had been given a very important public commission for the new headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation in Portland Place, a few yards from Oxford Circus, and in the very heart of commercial London. At the end of the 1920s the Governors of the BBC decided that they would like to commission some figurative sculpture for Broadcasting House, their new base. They chose Gill on the advice of the art critic Herbert Read, and requested a group of Prospero and Ariel for above the main door, a large figure of The Sower for the main entrance hall, and three reliefs with scenes of Ariel to be set above the three other door of the building. Photographs of Gill’s models for the Ariel reliefs were revealed to the press in May 1931, and they provoked a strong response from the amateur artist Violet, Duchess of Rutland. The Morning Post reported her views on the model for Ariel Learns Celestial Music: ‘I think that it is awful. The proportions of the woman’s body are all wrong. All I can say in its favour is that it might have been worse, and that it is better than the work with which Mr [Jacob] Epstein and Mr Henry Moore generally favour us.’ Prospero and Ariel are characters in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, and it is thought that the Governors chose them for the niche above the main door because Ariel, an ‘airy spirit’, was a reference to the airwaves of broadcasting. Although Prospero and Ariel are secular characters, Gill subtly altered them into religious figures. He turned the pair into God the Father with the child Jesus, and explained this change in his Autobiography: ‘Had not Prospero power over the immortal Gods? At any rate it seemed to be only right and proper that I should see the matter in as bright a light as possible and so I took it upon me to portray God the Father and God the Son. For even if that were not Shakespeare’s meaning it ought to be the BBC’s.’ Gill carved two half-size models for this sculpture: one depicted Prospero and Ariel and the other Abraham and Isaac. In the first model he cut stigmata into Ariel’s upraised palms, and in the second he translated the figures into biblical characters, which gives a clear indication that he intended to make this pair spiritual in content. When Gill came to carve the full-size group in situ at the BBC he did not immediately cut stigmata into Ariel’s hands, but during the carving he was visited by an old Ditchling friend and artist Philip Hagreen, whom he told that ‘he was thinking of the subject as God the Father sending forth the Word’. Gill did eventually cut stigmata into Ariel’s hands at the BBC, and in doing so he transformed Ariel into the young Christ, who foresees his inevitable death by crucifixion. Ariel’s upraised arms imply Christ’s position upon the cross. When Gill told Hagreen that he was thinking of the sculpture as God sending for the Word, he made a reference to his favourite theme, that of ‘the Word made flesh’. The beginning of St John’s Gospel states: ‘In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (v. 1) and then: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (v. 14). The Word referred to by St John is the son of God, Jesus Christ, who appeared on earth in fleshly form. When Gill wrote in his Autobiography of his first sculpture—Estin Thalassa—he described the female figure in the work in rather biblical terms: ‘I was responsible for her very existence and her every form came straight out of my heart. A new world opened up for me … A new alphabet—the word was made flesh.’ Cecil Gill, Eric’s youngest brother, gave a talk about Eric in 1967 entitled ‘Reminiscences’ and in this he informed his listeners that: ‘All his work, his way of life, and his thought proceeded from his acceptance of the doctrine that “word became flesh”. I emphasize this because one cannot begin to understand Eric, or his life, his work, and his teaching, without understanding, even if not wholly accepting, this deep spring of his being: the incarnation of Jesus Christ.’ Above the main entrance to the BBC, Gill carved ‘the word made flesh’, a stone incarnation of God the Father and God the Son. He wrote an article on his sculpture Prospero and Ariel for the BBC’s magazine the Listener in 1933 and stated that the prominent position of his sculpture ‘proclaims who the building belongs to and what game they think they are playing at. The Governors of the BBC imagine they are playing a very high game indeed. Deo Omnipotenti are the first words they hurl at you in their entrance hall …’ Gill revealed that he was extremely adept at playing the Governors’ game. —Judith Collins, 1998

Eric Gill at work on Prospero and Ariel group at the BBC, 1933.

Gill’s work for the BBC in 1931–32 reveals that at times he learned to display some caution in his message, and to keep it more covert. He had been given a very important public commission for the new headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation in Portland Place, a few yards from Oxford Circus, and in the very heart of commercial London. At the end of the 1920s the Governors of the BBC decided that they would like to commission some figurative sculpture for Broadcasting House, their new base. They chose Gill on the advice of the art critic Herbert Read, and requested a group of Prospero and Ariel for above the main door, a large figure of The Sower for the main entrance hall, and three reliefs with scenes of Ariel to be set above the three other door of the building. Photographs of Gill’s models for the Ariel reliefs were revealed to the press in May 1931, and they provoked a strong response from the amateur artist Violet, Duchess of Rutland. The Morning Post reported her views on the model for Ariel Learns Celestial Music: ‘I think that it is awful. The proportions of the woman’s body are all wrong. All I can say in its favour is that it might have been worse, and that it is better than the work with which Mr [Jacob] Epstein and Mr Henry Moore generally favour us.’

Prospero and Ariel are characters in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, and it is thought that the Governors chose them for the niche above the main door because Ariel, an ‘airy spirit’, was a reference to the airwaves of broadcasting. Although Prospero and Ariel are secular characters, Gill subtly altered them into religious figures. He turned the pair into God the Father with the child Jesus, and explained this change in his Autobiography: ‘Had not Prospero power over the immortal Gods? At any rate it seemed to be only right and proper that I should see the matter in as bright a light as possible and so I took it upon me to portray God the Father and God the Son. For even if that were not Shakespeare’s meaning it ought to be the BBC’s.’ Gill carved two half-size models for this sculpture: one depicted Prospero and Ariel and the other Abraham and Isaac. In the first model he cut stigmata into Ariel’s upraised palms, and in the second he translated the figures into biblical characters, which gives a clear indication that he intended to make this pair spiritual in content. When Gill came to carve the full-size group in situ at the BBC he did not immediately cut stigmata into Ariel’s hands, but during the carving he was visited by an old Ditchling friend and artist Philip Hagreen, whom he told that ‘he was thinking of the subject as God the Father sending forth the Word’. Gill did eventually cut stigmata into Ariel’s hands at the BBC, and in doing so he transformed Ariel into the young Christ, who foresees his inevitable death by crucifixion. Ariel’s upraised arms imply Christ’s position upon the cross.

When Gill told Hagreen that he was thinking of the sculpture as God sending for the Word, he made a reference to his favourite theme, that of ‘the Word made flesh’. The beginning of St John’s Gospel states: ‘In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (v. 1) and then: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (v. 14). The Word referred to by St John is the son of God, Jesus Christ, who appeared on earth in fleshly form. When Gill wrote in his Autobiography of his first sculpture—Estin Thalassa—he described the female figure in the work in rather biblical terms: ‘I was responsible for her very existence and her every form came straight out of my heart. A new world opened up for me … A new alphabet—the word was made flesh.’ Cecil Gill, Eric’s youngest brother, gave a talk about Eric in 1967 entitled ‘Reminiscences’ and in this he informed his listeners that: ‘All his work, his way of life, and his thought proceeded from his acceptance of the doctrine that “word became flesh”. I emphasize this because one cannot begin to understand Eric, or his life, his work, and his teaching, without understanding, even if not wholly accepting, this deep spring of his being: the incarnation of Jesus Christ.’

Above the main entrance to the BBC, Gill carved ‘the word made flesh’, a stone incarnation of God the Father and God the Son. He wrote an article on his sculpture Prospero and Ariel for the BBC’s magazine the Listener in 1933 and stated that the prominent position of his sculpture ‘proclaims who the building belongs to and what game they think they are playing at. The Governors of the BBC imagine they are playing a very high game indeed. Deo Omnipotenti are the first words they hurl at you in their entrance hall …’ Gill revealed that he was extremely adept at playing the Governors’ game.

—Judith Collins, 1998

#Eric Gill      #Broadcating House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Judith Collins      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

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Eric Gill, The East Wind, 55 Broadway, Westminster, London, 1928–9. Portland stone relief. The Underground Railway under the enlightened patronage of Frank Pick and with Charles Holden as architect encouraged good design, some by men and women who also worked in the crafts. For his 1929 stripped-classical head office for the Underground Railway (now London Transport) at St James’s Park, Holden commissioned sculptures of the East, West, North and South winds from an array of artists as diverse as Henry Moore and the architectural carver Eric Aumonier. Eric Gill oversaw the project from 1928 until 1929. There was something tentative about the scheme. The sculptures were positioned some eighty feet above street level and only Jacob Epstein’s Night and Day over the ground floor entrances make an impact. As Gill wrote to his Harvard friend Graham Carey: ‘The building is good and plain—iron with plain stone facings. We are quite out of place.’ —Tanya Harrod, 1999

Eric Gill, The East Wind, 55 Broadway, Westminster, London, 1928–9. Portland stone relief.

The Underground Railway under the enlightened patronage of Frank Pick and with Charles Holden as architect encouraged good design, some by men and women who also worked in the crafts. For his 1929 stripped-classical head office for the Underground Railway (now London Transport) at St James’s Park, Holden commissioned sculptures of the East, West, North and South winds from an array of artists as diverse as Henry Moore and the architectural carver Eric Aumonier. Eric Gill oversaw the project from 1928 until 1929. There was something tentative about the scheme. The sculptures were positioned some eighty feet above street level and only Jacob Epstein’s Night and Day over the ground floor entrances make an impact. As Gill wrote to his Harvard friend Graham Carey: ‘The building is good and plain—iron with plain stone facings. We are quite out of place.’

—Tanya Harrod, 1999

#Eric Gill      #55 Broadway      #Frank Pick      #Charles Holden      #Tanya Harrod      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago