Desmond Chute

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Father Desmond Macready Chute (1895-1962) was an English artist, who became a Catholic priest in 1927. He was born in Bristol, where his father James Macready Chute ran a theatre. He was educated at Downside School, and the Slade Art School in Manchester.

He was a friend of Stanley Spencer, from 1915. From 1918 became a close colleague and assistant of Eric Gill, and a founder of the Ditchling craftsmen's community, where he taught David Jones engraving. He published poetry in The Game, the community's magazine.

He became also a convinced distributist and follower of Vincent McNabb. He started in 1921 to study for the priesthood, in Fribourg. Later he moved for his health to Rapallo, where he was a friend of Ezra Pound, and one of the Tigullian Circle clique around him. He tutored Mary de Rachewiltz, Pound's daughter with Olga Rudge. In 1944, he was interned by the Germans in the monastery at Bobbio, Genoa.

His radio play Poets in Paradise was broadcast by the BBC in 1955. He died in Rapallo. His papers are in the Eric Gill Collection at Chichester.