{"id":217589,"date":"2025-06-27T03:38:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217589\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T03:38:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:38:20","slug":"three-works-by-artist-and-sexual-abuser-eric-gill-withdrawn-from-uk-exhibition-after-consultation-with-survivors-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217589\/","title":{"rendered":"Three works by artist and sexual abuser Eric Gill withdrawn from UK exhibition after consultation with survivors group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three works by the sculptor and artist Eric Gill, who sexually abused his daughters, have been withdrawn from a UK exhibition opening on 5 July.<\/p>\n

Two of the works\u2014a wood engraving and a drawing\u2014depict Gill\u2019s daughter Petra, naked in a bath, while the other is a drawing of a nude Elizabeth. Each had been lined up for inclusion in the exhibition It Takes A Village<\/a> at the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft (until 1 February 2026), focused on artists who, like Gill, worked in the Sussex village in the early 20th century. The decision to not show the works, which are part of the museum\u2019s collection, came after staff consulted a group of abuse survivors.<\/p>\n

Gill\u2019s art has been controversial since his abuse and incestuous relationship<\/a> with his sister, Gladys, came to light in a 1989 biography by Fiona MacCarthy. A sculpture on the front of BBC Broadcasting House in London, depicting Prospero and Ariel, has been vandalised twice\u2014in 2022 and 2023. It has since been restored and was reinstated in April.<\/p>\n

The Ditchling museum made the decision to invite four women from the Methodist Survivors Advisory Group, who had themselves been abused when they were younger, to co-curate the section of the show dedicated to Gill. The group had previously been involved in discussions over whether the UK\u2019s Methodist Modern Art Collection<\/a> (MMAC) should still own Gill’s watercolour, Annunciation (around 1912), which shows a dominant Angel Gabriel looming over the Virgin Mary. <\/p>\n

The MMAC heard about the Ditchling\u2019s plan for a show involving Gill\u2019s work and got in touch with the museum, offering The Annunciation as a loan and suggesting a collaboration with the survivors group\u2014which was agreed.<\/p>\n

The survivors felt that the three Ditchling-owned works of Gill\u2019s naked daughters\u2014titled Girl in a Bath I, Girl in a Bath II and From Eliz and part of the Ditchling\u2018s collection\u2014were offensive and could upset visitors to It Takes a Village. These objections were taken on board by the museum\u2019s director Stephanie Fuller.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to take the lead from the survivors group about what we could show,” Fuller says. “I had a long list of works, which was whittled down, and, after many discussions, they felt the three works were unsuitable. So they will not be in the exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate Steph\u2019s decision,\u201d says Vivien Almond, a member of the survivors group. \u201cThey are totally inappropriate. I\u2019m also sure that Gill\u2019s daughters never wanted to be depicted that way, nor did they give permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the survivors group also had concerns about Annunciation as it shows a dominant Angel Gabriel looming over the Virgin Mary. It will be included in the Ditchling museum\u2019s It Takes A Village exhibition, however in a separate room featuring some of Gill\u2019s more controversial works.<\/p>\n

Giving voice to Gill\u2019s daughters<\/p>\n

A key mission of the show is to celebrate the lives and achievements of Gill\u2019s three daughters, \u201cnot as victims but as subsequently having fulfilled lives\u201d, Fuller says. All three\u2014the youngest being Joanna\u2014married, had children and worked in the creative arts. \u201cTheir voices have been missing,\u201d says Fuller.<\/p>\n

Among the exhibits will be Petra\u2019s handweaving and the wedding dress she made herself, plus drawings and booklets by all three daughters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A scarf handwoven and dyed by Petra Tegetmeier (Eric Gill\u2019s daughter) from around 1920<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft<\/p>\n

The museum has also very recently discovered art by Petra, Elizabeth and Joanna, which they had sent to the sculptor Joseph Cribb, Gill\u2019s apprentice. The works, which were part of a collection given to the museum by Cribb\u2019s grandson, include a drawing by Elizabeth of horses and dogs, made for Cribb after he was invalided out of World War One; an etching by Petra of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, sent to Cribb as a Christmas card; and Joanna\u2019s Three Kings from the Orient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three were all very fond of Joseph,\u201d says Fuller.<\/p>\n

Fuller has talked to some of Gill\u2019s relatives about the exhibition. One, Jenny Davies, who is a great-granddaughter, is, according to Fuller, \u201chappy with the approach\u201d the museum has taken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three works by the sculptor and artist Eric Gill, who sexually abused his daughters, have been withdrawn from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,86179,4022,86178,77,4845,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-217589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-controversies","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-ditchling-museum-of-art-craft","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-exhibitions","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114753248165988966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}