In Coventry
The city of Coventry has a preoccupation with looking into the past and also anticipating and planning for the future. It is today the ‘City of Peace and Reconciliation’. A link with the past has in recent years been removed from the city in the form of one of the last sculptures of the artist Eric Gill.
Brief Biography
Eric Gill was a gifted English sculptor, letter-cutter, typographic designer, calligrapher and engraver – born 22nd February 1882 and died 17th November 1940. The reputation as a gifted artist is, however, very much clouded today by evidence of his preoccupation with things of a sexual nature following publication of biographical details.
The Coventry Connection
It was in 1937 that Eric Gill drew sketches for an item of sculpture within Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital in Coventry city centre based on the theme of the good Samaritan. This theme has also been used at the Brompton Hospital in London as a carving in brick. The artist was to complete the work in October 1938 in situ in a prominent position above the main entrance of the hospital. It was in fact placed above a first floor window as a modest piece of stonework on the front of a rather plain building.
The Blitz
During the night of 14th November 1940, the hospital received direct bombing hits – with Eric Gill’s sculpture receiving significant shrapnel damage. The morning after the raid, the hospital scene was one of devastation. Fortunately, no patients were fatally injured in this particular raid on the hospital though more devastating raids were to follow. Doctors and nurses had worked bravely during the night to treat the wounded with the greater part of the roof missing and no electricity. Within the city at large, over 600 people were killed in the first raids and subsequently buried in the city’s War Memorial Park. The city’s cathedral was also a victim of the conflagration where the structure was essentially pulled apart by steel reinforcing beams designed to strengthen its structure but which buckled in the intense heat.
Parting of the Ways
The focus relating to Eric Gill’s sculpture became heightened with the building of Coventry’s new University Hospital at the site of the existing Walsgrave Hospital in the east of the city. An art committee had been initiated some time previously which had raised awareness of any items of significance which could be ultimately transferred to the new hospital site. Curiosity about a ‘medieval like’ sculpture located within a brick wall of a building on the Coventry and Warwickshire hospital site led enquiry to the art curator of the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery in the city. This sculpture was indeed a noted work of Eric Gill and as such was an item to be carefully conserved and managed. Why it had not been afforded a more secure location inside the hospital was a mystery. There are obviously gaps in the sculpture’s life history that need to be filled.
Security
There was however, an immediate problem. The sculpture was effectively in a city centre site with minimal security. The sculpture was vulnerable to both theft and malicious damage following revelations about the lifestyle of Eric Gill. Publicity about the sculpture could therefore be well intentioned but entirely dangerous.
Options
The hospital management had options with regard to the fate of the sculpture. They could conserve the item and incorporate it into the new hospital, donate the item to the City of Coventry or sell the item and use the proceeds towards art in the new hospital. The option of selling the item was the one chosen – raising around £26000 at auction at Sotheby’s in July 2007. The catalogue details of Sotheby’s concerning the sale provide additional historical details of the work. On subsequently trying to contact the arts curator at the Herbert Gallery to find out more details of its present location, it transpires that this individual had been made redundant. The sculpture was in fact purchased by a private buyer in the United Kingdom. In the context of this Eric Gill sculpture, it may have been too difficult a task for a public body to separate the legacy of the works of the artist from his lifestyle.
