The End of a Friendship – Gill and the Dominicans
GILL, Eric. Wood-Engravings. Being a Selection of Eric Gill’s Engravings on Wood … Ditchling, Sussex: S. Dominic's Press. 1924.
Large 4to. Original oatmeal cloth with exceedingly rare blue dust-jacket with woodcut of Virgin and Child to front, lettered ‘Wood-engravings: E. Gill’; ff. 36, comprising 34 wood engravings; title-page and two plates printed in red and black; dust-jacket with very light horizontal crease to upper edge of front cover, spine slightly sunned, a little spotting to cloth; very faint marginal toning; a very good copy; plate ‘She Loves Me Not’ numbered by hand in minute digits, large bookplate of Andrew and Mary Henderson Bishop of Lanarkshire; a very good copy.
A beautiful compendium of Gill’s (1882–1940) wood engravings, rare in the dust-jacket, produced without his knowledge or consent by the printer and poet Douglas Pepler (1878–1951), Gill’s artistic collaborator at the religious commune of artists at Ditchling, Sussex and founder of St Dominic’s Press, no. IV of fifty numbered copies of an edition of 150.
St Dominic’s Press was the publishing arm of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in Ditchling; Pepler had moved there in 1915 to collaborate with Gill, but financial disagreements between the two men contributed to Gill’s decision to leave Ditchling for Capel-y-Ffin in 1924. Gill wanted to take the woodblocks for these engravings with him, but Pepler considered them to be the property of the Dominican Order, of which he was a lay member and for whom the works had been intended. He refused to let Gill take the blocks and instead produced this magnificent collection of images, featuring the artist’s characteristic mixture of the divine and the profane. Gill never spoke to Pepler again, although Pepler’s son David (d. 1934) was married to Gill’s daughter Betty.
Provenance: With the bookplate of Andrew and Mary Henderson Bishop of Lanarkshire, best known for lending their name to one of the most prestigious ladies’ curling competitions in Scotland.
Gill 410; Taylor & Sewell A129a.
SKU: 2122169