Gill was a surprising choice for the commission as he had only recently become a Catholic and had only been a sculptor for three years. In 1914, Gill had met the typographer Stanley Morison, who was later to become a typographic consultant for the Monotype Corporation. The typefaces designed by Gill for Monotype - Perpetua, Gill Sans-serif, and Solus - remain ‘his greatest achievement’, she says; and Gill Sans-serif can be considered ‘the first truly modern typeface’ which had a lasting impact on 20th century European type design. Along with his friend and collaborator Jacob Epstein, Gill planned the construction in the Sussex countryside of a colossal, hand-carved monument in imitation of the large-scale structures at Gwalior Fort in Madhya Pradesh. In London, Gill would stay at his old lodgings in Lincoln's Inn with his brother Max or with his sister Gladys and Ernest Laughton, her future husband.

He frequently courted controversy with his opposition to industrialisation, modern commerce, and the use of machinery in both the home and the workplace. These sessions encouraged us to consider various contentious objects and the ethical dilemmas they raised, and from the moment they began it was obvious what potentially treacherous territory we were in. He began his work as an inscription artist, inscribing lettering on numerous buildings throughout Britain, especially in churches, graveyards, and institutions. Quite why Gill was offered, let alone accepted, these honours from institutions he had openly reviled throughout his career is unclear. She records that Gill kept meticulous diaries and it is only in these that the real Gill is revealed, since his Autobiography is, she says, ‘charmingly misleading’.

The success of his 1928 exhibition at the Goupil Gallery had raised Gill's profile considerably and led to Charles Holden commissioning him to lead a team of five sculptors, including Henry Moore, in creating some of the external sculptures for the new headquarters building of the London Electric Railway, the forerunner of London Underground. Gill's final publications included Twenty-Five Nudes and Drawings from Life both of which included drawings of Daisy Hawkins, the teenage daughter of the Gills' housekeeper with whom Gill began an affair in 1937. From there, in the last decade of his life, Gill became an architectural sculptor of some fame, creating large, high profile works for central London buildings, including both the headquarters of the BBC and the forerunner of London Underground.

Finding the monastery chapel beyond repair, a new one was quickly built and a Benedictine monk from Caldey Abbey was assigned to the group to hold a daily Mass. A discussion followed in which someone asked if its value as art – fairly minimal, in her opinion – would merit its inclusion in any future exhibition; while another suggested that, conversely, it might be a rather useful object in terms of telling Gill’s story: after all, while it connects directly to his daughter, it is not, in and of itself, a controversial object (unlike, say, a nude drawing of her). In 1935, Gill was elected an Honorary Associate of the Institute of British Architects and in 1937 was made a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest British award for designers, by the Royal Society of Arts, and became a founder-member of the RSA's Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry when it was established in 1938. Isn’t the risk that the museum will henceforth forever be associated in the public mind with one deeply alienating part of the life of the artist most central to its collections?From Gill Sans, to Sans Gill: The Controversy over the Work of Eric Gill Content warning: Rape, sexual abuse On January 12, 2022, an activist used a ladder to . On January 12, 2022, an activist used a ladder to climb above the entrance to the BBC Broadcasting House in London and preceded to attack the statue of Prospero and Ariel prominently displayed above the door. In restless retirement, Kip’s lifelong passion for vintage photos sees him launching a new arts institution. Even in Ditchling, where connections to the Gill family still run deep and where the Museum of Art + Craft is so important to the community, these headlines will spring up.

The first of these communities was at Ditchling in Sussex, where Gill established the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic for Catholic craftsmen. From 1924, he contributed engravings to the Golden Cockerel Press, producing beautiful handmade limited editions of classic works, which brought him international fame. In terms of what goes on behind closed doors, both now and then – a Hell of a lot more than we are aware of. These included the Trumpington War Memorial in Cambridgeshire, the Chirk War Memorial in north Wales, the memorial at Ditchling, and the wall panel recording 228 names of the fallen in the ante-chapel at New College, Oxford. Several organisations, including Save the Children, resolved to stop using typefaces designed by Gill.I hadn’t felt it [his biography] would be an issue for us, until one day I found myself looking at work we would feel uncomfortable showing. In 1900 Gill became disillusioned with Chichester and moved to London to train as an architect with the practice of W. In addition, some designs such as Joanna were released to fine printing use long before they became widely available from Monotype. Gill was also deeply fascinated with sex and eroticism, a theme which is considered to clash with his deep religiosity.

Gill and Pepler together produced issues of The Game, a small journal, mostly illustrated by Gill and containing articles on craft and social matters. Will the staff who attended talk to me about what kind of precedent the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft might be setting? Apparently, the inspiration for such a liberal approach to the subject of sex came to Gill after hearing the art historian Anand a Coomaraswamy’s talks on Indian art in 1908.The typeface was loosely based on the Arabic Naskh style but was considered unacceptably far from the norms of Arabic script.