A gorgeous new edition of Fiona MacCarthy's ground-breaking biography of the artist-craftsman, typographer, and lettercutter, master wood-engraver, and sculptor: Eric Gill. 'Fascinating on the work and fair to the man; a brilliant biography.' Independent 'Scrupulous and sensitive . . . A wise and foolish English eccentric in full glory.' Observer 'Full of insight and interest . . . A considerable addition to modern biography.' Times Eric Gill was the greatest English artist-craftsman of the twentieth century: a typographer and lettercutter of genius and a master in the art of sculpture and wood-engraving. He was a devoted family man and key figure in three Catholic art and craft communities: yet he also believed in complete sexual freedom. In her controversial, landmark biography, originally published in 1989, celebrated biographer Fiona MacCarthy delves into the complex, dark, and contradictory sides of the man and the artist for the first time - and the result is his definitive portrait.

"This original collection gathers the finest woodcuts of one of the most creative and prolific English artists of the early 20th century. Ranging from the religious to the erotic, featured designs include images inspired by The Song of Songs, The Canterbury Tales, and The Four Gospels. A feast for the eyes and an important and accessible reference. "--

When the prolific master artist-craftsman Eric Gill turned his talents to inscriptional lettering, he created some of the most elegant monuments known. All 900 are catalogued here, from his first sonte inscription in 1901 to his design for his own gravestone in 1940.

An Essay on Typography was first published in 1931, instantly recognized as a classic, and has long been unavailable. It represents Gill at his best: opinionated, fustian, and consistently humane. It is his only major work on typography and remains indispensable for anyone interested in the art of letter forms and the presentation of graphic information. This manifesto, however, is not only about letters "š€š" their form, fit, and function "š€š" but also about man's role in an industrial society. As Gill wrote later, it was his chief object "to describe two worlds "š€š" that of industrialism and that of the human workman "š€š" and to define their limits." His thinking about type is still provocative. Here are the seeds of modern advertising: unjustified lines, tight word and letter spacing, ample leading. Here is vintage Gill, as polemical as he is practical, as much concerned about the soul of man as the work of man; as much obsessed by the ends as by the means.

A gorgeous new edition of Fiona MacCarthy's ground-breaking biography of the artist- craftsman, typographer, and lettercutter, master wood-engraver, and sculptor: Eric Gill. 'Fascinating on the work and fair to the man; a brilliant biography.' Independent 'Scrupulous and sensitive . . . A wise and foolish English eccentric in full glory.' Observer 'Full of insight and interest . . . A considerable addition to modern biography.' Times Eric Gill was the greatest English artist-craftsman of the twentieth century: a typographer and lettercutter of genius and a master in the art of sculpture and wood-engraving. He was a devoted family man and key figure in three Catholic art and craft communities: yet he also believed in complete sexual freedom. In her controversial, landmark biography, originally published in 1989, celebrated biographer Fiona MacCarthy delves into the complex, dark, and contradictory sides of the man and the artist for the first time - and the result is his definitive portrait.