Eric Gill

Eve

1928

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Not on display

Artist: Eric Gill 1882–1940
Medium: Bath stone
Dimensions: Object: 737 × 152 × 152 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Hugh W. Rawlinson 1963
Reference: T00583

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In the 1920s, the new critical approach of writers such as Roger Fry and R.H. Wilenski released a number of British sculptors from a slavish veneration of Greek art. They began to question classical standards of beauty by looking afresh at the art of non-European cultures. Eric Gill's interest in the art of non-European cultures developed before the 1920s, largely through the influence of the philosopher and theologian Ananda Coomaraswamy. In 1908 Coomaraswamy's lecture on Indian Art made a deep impression on Gill. In this sculpture Gill explores the relationship between the sacred and the profane, drawing in particular on traditional Indian sculpture.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

T00583 EVE 1928

Inscr. ‘E G’ t.l. on back of base.
Bath stone, 29×6×6 (64×15×15), including base 5 1/8 (13) high.
Bequeathed by Hugh W. Rawlinson 1963.
Coll: Purchased by Hugh W. Rawlinson at the Goupil Gallery 1928.
Exh: Goupil Gallery, March 1928 (8).
Repr: Thorp, 1929, pl.25; Artwork, No.13, 1928, p.60.

The companion figure of Adam (repr. Thorp, loc. cit.) was purchased by Sir Hugh Walpole and was probably exhibited in The Art Collection of the late Sir Hugh Walpole, Leicester Galleries, April–May 1945 (144), as ‘Man Standing’; it passed to the Collection of Mr and Mrs S. Samuels in Liverpool.

T00583 had been on loan to the Tate Gallery since 1960.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I