Eric Gill

(1882 – 1940)

Eric Gill was a writer, architect, calligrapher, monumental mason, engraver, and sculptor who was born in 1882 in Brighton. His family moved to Chichester in 1897 where Gill studied art and spent many hours drawing in the Cathedral. He was apprenticed to an ecclesiastical architect in London in 1900 and eventually supported himself as a professional stonecutter.In the summer and autumn of 1910 Gill and Epstein became close friends, collaborating in a scheme to create a new religion with artist Augustus John. Together they intended to carve an immense temple, a modern Stonehenge, containing colossal figures in a six-acre plot near Asheham House in Sussex. They dreamed of sculpting monumental works of art that integrated themes of sexuality, birth and religion, to be placed in a temple where they could be worshiped. The project was never fulfilled and Epstein and Gill parted acrimoniously in 1911.