Sunday, April 11, 2021

William Bain Gill, Portraits

When the venerable and fun Kurt Gänzl wrote the biography of William Bain Gill, we were pained in finding a picture of him. The one the family had vanished with a tropical storm, but there are now three images of the fellow, hereunder placed for those interested. 

The first is from a book of Theatrical reminiscences from a third party.

The next is Gill as a successful theatre-tent man in Hill End of 1873 which survives as a glass plate negative (I have coloured it to break the page monotony) that I suspect has not been photographed in high resolution by those charged with its preservation, and is probably flaking to nothing as we speak. It was labelled as Mr. Gile and so escaped detection.

The last is Willie as a young man as he appeared with his mother in "Caste".