Hampshire House Bakery

A wide-ranging bout of family illness has enforced a bit of a break from the blog, so I’ll ease myself back into it with some ephemera.

This beautiful wood-engraving was made by the English artist and typographer Eric Gill (1882-1940). It was made in 1915 and was originally a piece of advertising art, intended for the paper bags used by the Hampshire House Bakery in Hammersmith, London.

Gill also designed a famous typeface, the eponymous Gill Sans, which is still widely used, and carved the stone figures of Prospero and Ariel (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) on the facade of BBC Broadcasting House in central London.

Gill was an eccentric figure in his own lifetime, and details of his private life that emerged after his death have since made him a controversial one also. If you’re curious, you can do no better than get hold of a copy of Fiona MacCarthy’s excellent biography, Eric Gill. It’s currently out of print, but there is a Kindle edition.