Christie’s veto on sales of art by Gill may be slippery slope, says gallery
Decision by auction house fuels debate on treating great works on merit, irrespective of artists’ sins
CHRISTIE’S is to stop selling work by the British artist Eric Gill because of his problematic personal life and sexual perversions.
The international auction house is understood to have taken the decision to no longer stage sales of prints and sculptures by Gill, who admitted sexually abusing his sister, his own daughters and his dog.
Christie’s website makes it clear it has no future sales of Gill’s work planned.
The decision will revive the debate within the art world over whether the great works of art can or should be treated separately from any misdeeds by their creators.
Many who admire Gill’s work say it can still be enjoyed, despite what we now know of the man who produced it.
One gallery owner who intends to carry on selling works by the artist, who died in 1940, said: “To ban sales of Gill now would be the start of a very slippery slope. If we ban him, what about artists such as Caravaggio or Gauguin
‘There will always be a debate about the maker and the art and whether you can separate the two’
who also had sexually problematic personal lives?”
Jay Goldmark, the managing director of Goldmark Galleries, which has a number of Gill drawings and engravings currently for sale for up to £12,000 each, told The Daily Telegraph: “There will always be a debate about the maker and the art and whether you can separate the two. It’s something to think about but we won’t be changing our policy on sales of Gill.”
Others say that to carry on profiting from Gill’s work and displaying it in galleries is offensive and deeply wounding to victims of sexual abuse. In January, a man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after defacing a statue by Gill displayed outside the BBC’S Broadcasting House headquarters in London in an apparent protest against his paedophilia.
The BBC said at the time that it had no plans to remove the statue of Ariel, saying when it was commissioned in 1933 it “was seen as an appropriate symbol for the new dawn of broadcasting”.
However, in the same month, Save the Children announced it would no longer use its logo featuring the Gill Sans typeface, designed by the artist in 1928.
Staff at the organisation are said to have repeatedly warned managers of the dangers of linking the work of a known abuser with a child welfare body before the decision was taken.
“I told them that this probably wasn’t a good idea,” said a source at the time.
At the same time, Guildford Cathedral is considering removing Gill statues of John the Baptist and Christ adorning its exterior.
Nicola Pratt, its head of development, said: “Cathedral chapter is in the process of considering any new interpretation which may need to be added to our material to acknowledge the wrongdoings of Gill.”
Extracts from Gill’s private diaries, published by his biographer Fiona Maccarthy half a century after his death, revealed that the artist sexually assaulted his teenage daughters as well as his dog.
A source at Christie’s said: “The auction house is about to stop accepting Gill’s works because of his incest and other sexual perversions.”
Christie’s itself did not respond to requests for comment.