MacDonald Gill (Charting a Life)

MacDonald 'Max' Gill (1884-1947) was an architect, letterer, mural painter and graphic artist of the first half of the twentieth century, best known for his pioneering pictorial poster maps including the whimsical Wonderground Map of London Town. His beautiful painted panel maps decorate the Palace of Westminster and Lindisfarne Castle and the alphabet he designed in 1918 is still used on the British military headstone. He enjoyed close links with many leading figures in the arts & crafts world: the architects Sir Charles Nicholson, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Halsey Ricardo, the calligrapher Edward Johnston, Frank Pick of the London Underground, and of course his brother – the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill. Overshadowed in recent times by his controversial sibling, MacDonald Gill was nevertheless a significant artist of his time. With much of his four-decade output touching on the remarkable events and developments of his time – including two world wars, the decline of Empire, the advent of flight, and innovations in communications technology, his work also takes on a unique historical importance. Drawing chiefly from family archives, this biography of MacDonald Gill is the first publication to tell the story of this complex and talented man.