I recently encountered the art of Eric Gill for the first time and was blown away. He was a draftsman, engraver, and designer of fonts (e.g. Gill Sans) of just incredible talent. I gathered these images to share with you. It’s unusual for me to not dig in quickly to learn the story of an artist who excites me but only as I added this gallery did I pause to learn more about him. Along with a lifetime of extraordinary accomplishments, including rafts of popular writing, he was a fucking freak. He was a lifelong hot mess of edgy sexual experimentation that went wholly beyond the pale. Look it up if you want. It isn’t pretty.
It raises the whole question of what we do with the monsters. What do we do with incomparable genius in monsters, and what do we do with the work they leave behind? Before I knew the story I was electrified by his work…five minutes later it’s just tainted and impossible to celebrate. I leave it here for what I thought it was then, and whatever the hell it is now, ten or so minutes later.
