Just like the writer Nicholas Stuart Gray, the graphic artist MacDonald Gill deserves to be much better known.
MacDonald (Max) Gill (1884 – 1947) was a cartographer, a letterer, an architect, an illustrator and much more. He is best known for his decorative maps.
I particularly like his sunbursts, and I enjoy scrutinising his maps to locate streets I have lived in or know well.
There are many images of his work online; I have selected just a few representative examples for this article.
This beautiful mural of the North Atlantic was created in 1935 for the first class dining room on the great ocean liner RMS Queen Mary:
I love Gill's old maps of London, with their amusing images and text.
Two details from The Wonderground Map of London Town (1914):
I used to live in Worthing, so Gill's 1933 oil-on-wood panel in Worthing Town Hall is of special interest:
The magazine Land and Water was mentioned in an article about John Buchan's Greenmantle. The February 1918 edition has one of MacDonald Gill's illustrations:
This Creation mural on the ceiling of St. Andrew's Church in Roker, Sunderland was painted in 1927:
Just like Nicholas Stuart Gray, MacDonald Gill has a Farjeon connection: he illustrated one of Eleanor Farjeon's books. Nursery Rhymes of London Town was first published in 1916:
Biography and website
A very comprehensive biography of MacDonald Gill was published in 2020, and this website is dedicated to his life and works:
