#eric gill

[ybon-paramoux]

Eric Gill b.1882 - The First Temptation

[topcat77]

Eric Gill b.1882

[nemfrog]

Sleep. Song Of Songs. 1925.

Internet Archive

[mioritic]

Eric Gill (British, 1882–1940)

Frontispiece engraving for Aldous Huxley's Leda (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929)

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Eric Gill

[fromthedust]

Eric Gill (English, 1882–1940)

Eve

[theaskew]

Eric Gill (British 1882-1940), Standing Female Nude, 1912. Pen and ink and body colour on tracing paper, 16.8 x 6.7 cm. | 6 5/8 x 2 5/8 in.

[stone-cold-groove]

Gill Sans Medium.

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend!

Volume 15 of the thirty-seven volume The Comedies Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare is Henry the Eighth, illustrated with wood engravings by one of the foremost designer/illustrators of the 20th century, Eric Gill, and published in 1939 by the Limited Editions Club (LEC) in an edition of 1950 copies. Henry VIII is a collaborative history play, written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII, and first published in the Folio of 1623. It was during a performance of this play at the Globe Theatre in 1613 that a cannon shot employed for special effects ignited the theatre's roof, burning the original Globe building to the ground.

Gill’s wood engravings were printed directly from the wood by R. & R. Clark in  Edinburgh. Gill writes that the play seemed to him to turn on the intrigue of Anne Boleyn:

So the first engraving shows the King enamoured of Anne. . . . The second shows a symbol of Henry’s doubts: the scales hold on the one side the charming Anne and on the other a lighted candle, symbolising the pure light of truth represented by Catherine. . . . The third picture shows the fall of Wolsey: a naked Cardinal seems to signify a breakdown of all earthly grandeurs. The fourth picture shows the coronation of Anne, symbolically taking place on the tomb of Catherine; and lastly the baptism of Elizabeth . . . sitting in the font, held up by the Bishop, under whose cloak is hiding the modern man of business with account book . . .

The volume in the set was printed in an edition of 1950 copies at the Press of A. Colish, and each was illustrated by a different artist, but the unifying factor is that all volumes were designed by famed book and type designer Bruce Rogers and edited by the British theatre professional and Shakespeare specialist Herbert Farjeon. Our copy is number 1113, the number for long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin.

View other posts relating to Eric Gill.

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts.

View more posts with wood engravings!

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[portraituresque]

Eric Gill - Self-portrait

[casaannabel]

[topcat77]

Eric Gill

[mioritic]

Eric Gill (English, 1882–1940)

"St. Sebastian", 1920

Tate Britain

[arinewman7]

Eric Gill

wood engraving

[nsfwbible]

‘flesh of my flesh’

Eric Gill made the wood engraving, ‘Eve’, in 1926. The print is in the Tate collections (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0)

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

On top of all the other things wrong with Eric Gill (do not research), his actual art is kind of mid as well. A foundational case of "is he bold and innovative, or does he just talk about Theory a lot?"