Eric Gill

Acquired in the late 1920s by the present owner's family and thence by descent

Judith Collins, Eric Gill: The Sculpture, Herbert Press, London, 1998, no.166, p.151, illustrated.

There are a few small inconsistencies to the front surface of the stone, and larger inconsistencies to the rest of the surface, which are inherent to the work. There is a tiny spot of surface matter in the lower left quadrant of the surface. Otherwise the sculpture is in very good overall condition.
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Carved in 1925, the present work, which is apparently unexhibited and whose whereabouts have been unknown to scholars, dates from the short period when Gill was based in Wales. In a bid to remove himself from the community that had grown up at Ditchling, Gill moved his and two other families to the rambling and rather neglected ex-monastery of Capel-y-ffin in a remote area of the Black Mountains.

As with many of Gill's schemes, the move was both a success and a failure. The state of the building and the lack of facilities meant a great deal of work from all concerned, and without a large space for carving, much of the work produced there was on a small scale. However, Gill felt that this period marked a notable point in his understanding of human love, and the figure sculptures carved at Capel-y-ffin do all seem to exhibit a very strong sensual element, and even in ostensibly religious subjects, such as the small The Holy Face of Christ (Manchester City Art Gallery) of 1925, the sense of earthly delight is still strong. 

The female nude, presented in Nude Girl with Hair in a most direct yet ethereal manner, was a subject that occupied a very distinct place in Gill's work, and in a work such as this we can see the many different strands of influence that make his treatment of this perennial sculptors' subject so distinctive. The rejection of the clichés of female nude sculpture by artists such as Rodin and Gauguin had allowed artists to consider the essential elements of the subject, and for Gill, whose interests drew on sources as wide as English medieval carving and Indian temple sculpture, this offered the opportunity to investigate his own conception of form and subject, both sacred and profane. Whilst the present sculpture has no obvious literary or mythological subject, the long and luxuriant hair does suggest a link with the traditional iconography of Mary Magdalen, and indeed the present work is only slightly earlier than a sculpture by Gill of that subject in a private collection which has a similar concentration on the hair, and a further stone relief of 1925 also entitled Nude Girl with Hair (Private Collection) that shows a half-length female nude surrounded by flowing locks.

Carved in relatively shallow relief, this small sculpture uses a very dense stone, possibly Caen stone, which allows Gill to achieve a very crisp yet warm surface that in combination with its small size gives the piece an air reminiscent of English alabaster carving.