Artist · 4 prints
MacDonald Gill Prints
About MacDonald Gill
Leslie MacDonald Gill, known as Max, was an English designer, mapmaker and letterer, born in Brighton on October 6, 1884, and he died in London on January 14, 1947. He grew up in Bognor and trained as an architect, working for the church architects Nicholson and Corlette while taking evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Like his older brother, the artist Eric Gill, he studied lettering with Edward Johnston.
Gill's breakthrough was the Wonderground Map of London Town, commissioned by Frank Pick of the London Underground and published in 1914. The playful, crowded poster map was a hit, and it led to many more decorative maps, murals and posters for the Post Office, Shell and others. In 1918 he designed the alphabet used on the headstones of the Imperial War Graves Commission, a lettering still seen on war graves around the world. Later work included a map of the North Atlantic for the liner Queen Mary (1936).
MacDonald Gill prints: reproductions of the decorative pictorial maps MacDonald Gill designed in London between 1914 and the late 1920s. The collection includes The Famous Wonderground Map of London Town, The Country Bus-Services Map, London and Vicinity (1928), A Map of Australia Portraying Her Agricultural Products & Fisheries (1928) and A Map of Scotland Portraying Her Agricultural Products and Fisheries (1929).
Our selection focuses on Gill's poster maps, in which the geography is filled with small drawings, hand lettering and jokes. The two London maps were made for the city's transport network, and the Australia and Scotland maps show farm produce and fisheries region by region. Each map rewards close reading, with captions, figures and decorated borders in every corner.
The bright colors and dense detail suit hallways, home offices, children's rooms and reading corners, and each map can hold a wall on its own above a desk or sofa. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
