Rediscovering Max Gill
The work of early 20th Century information design pioneer MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill has been largely overlooked.
Kemistry Gallery will reappraise the work of Gill – an artist, designer and architect who lived in the shadow of his brother Eric Gill, the sculptor, letterer and typographer.
Max Gill, as he was generally known, specialised in what we’d now term info graphics – at least in that he found unconventional yet understandable ways of mapping information.
His Wonderground map of 1914 showed the London Underground as a detailed map of characters and inspired a resurgence of pictorial and decorative map-making in Britain, the US, Latin America and Australia.
The North Atlantic map he produced, complete with moveable crystal ship, is still to be seen on the preserved liner Queen Mary, now a hotel permanently moored in California.
Examples of his decorative map posters for London Transport, the International Tea market Expansion Board and the General Post Office will all be on show.
MacDonald Gill will run from 28 March-4 May at Kemistry Gallery, 43 Charlotte Road, EC2
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