Macdonald Gill

MacDonald “Max” Gill (1884–1947) was a renowned British architect, letterer, mural painter, and graphic artist of the early twentieth century. He is perhaps best known for his pictorial poster maps, including the whimsical 1914 “Wonderground Map,” which proved so popular with riders that it became the first London Underground poster to be sold commercially to the public and is today considered to have saved the network by increasing off-peak travel.

He enjoyed close links with many leading figures in the arts and crafts world, including the architects Sir Charles Nicholson, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and Halsey Ricardo; Edward Johnston, one of the fathers of modern calligraphy; Frank Pick, the British transport administrator who commissioned many icons of the London Underground’s identity; and his brother, the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill. Though his legacy is overshadowed by his controversial brother, MacDonald Gill was nevertheless a significant and influential artist of his time. Today, his painted panel maps decorate the Palace of Westminster and Lindisfarne Castle, and the alphabet he designed in 1918 is still used on the British military headstone.

With a four-decade career spanning two world wars, the decline of the British Empire, and countless innovations in communications technology, his work takes on heightened historical importance, as it reflects the remarkable events and developments of his era. Drawing chiefly from family archives, MacDonald Gill: Charting a Life is the first book to tell the story of this complex and talented man.