Madge Gill (British, 1882–1961)

Photo courtesy of Newham Heritage Service

Madge Gill was born Maude Ethel Eades to a single mother in the East End of London. As a child of nine she was sent to live in an orphanage and then, at fourteen, was sent along with hundreds of other orphans to live and work in Canada. After several years of domestic labor on Ontario farms, she returned to London where she lived with her aunt, and worked for a short while as a nurse in a London suburb. It was her aunt who introduced Madge to Spiritualism, which would have a great influence on Madge’s life and artistic production. In 1907, Madge married her cousin Tom. The couple had three sons; in 1919, a daughter was stillborn and following the childbirth, Madge suffered a severe illness that left her blind in one eye.

Soon after her recovery, Gill felt an irresistible inspiration to create art of all sorts, including fiber arts, music, and drawing; ink-drawing became an essential part of her life, and she worked in what could be described as a compulsive fashion, creating thousands of drawings in her lifetime. Gill felt inspired, or “possessed,” by a spirit-guide she called Myrninerest; she included Myrninerest’s signature on much of her work. In a 1937 interview she said, “I felt I was definitely guided by an unseen force, though I could not say what its actual nature was.” Her ink drawings, which she made on paper, postcards, card stock, and even on long rolls of plain calico cloth, are densely worked over the whole surface and typically feature a female face or figure surrounded by checkerboard patterns, architectural elements such as stairs or arches, and lace-like networks of lines. Most of her work is in black ink, like the example in this exhibition, but she also used colored inks.