Gill, Eric

In 1935 Gill was commissioned to provide a huge relief for the League of Nations Building in Geneva, which was to be the gift of the British government. His first idea, a favourite one, was Christ driving the money changers from the Temple.  This, however, was rejected, and Gill wrote to Anthony Eden in June 1935 with a new idea: The Creation of Man. This drawing shows the design almost exactly as accepted (an additional Latin phrase was added to the final carving). The Latin is taken from Genesis, ch.I, v.27: 'In the image of God created he him' and the English is the beginning of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem The Wreck of the Deutschland. The relief was carved during 1937 and set in place in 1938.

PROVENANCE

Anthony d'Offay, London
Wolseley Fine Arts, Walterstone
Sophie Schneideman Rare Books, London

EXHIBITED

London, Anthony d'Offay, Eric Gill, Drawings & Carvings, A Centenary Exhibition, 12th May - 18th June 1982, cat. no.45;
London, Sophie Schneideman Rare Books, Eric Gill, October 2009, cat. no.16, illustrated.