Phillip King | |
---|---|
Born | [1] | 1 May 1934
Died | 27 July 2021 87) [2] | (aged
Known for | Sculpture |
Movement | New Generation |
Phillip King PRA (1 May 1934 – 27 July 2021) was a British sculptor. He was one of Anthony Caro's best-known students, even though the two artists were near contemporaries. Their education followed similar trajectories and they both worked as assistants to Henry Moore. Following the "New Generation" show at the Whitechapel Gallery, both Caro and King were included in the seminal 1966 exhibit, "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in New York representing the British influence on the "New Art". [3] In 2011, his work was represented in the Royal Academy exhibition on Modern British Sculpture which explored British sculpture of the twentieth century.
King was born in Tunis, French Tunisia. After the war, his parents moved to England, and he was educated at Mill Hill School from 1947 to 1952. While doing his national service he spent much time in Paris where he met many artists. He was supposed to be joining a general's staff, but when he got there found that someone else had taken his post. As a result, he found himself with a lot of time to explore the city and paid many visits to the Louvre, where he made drawings of the sculptures. He said, "It made me think for the first time about sculpture being the art of the invisible: it was quite a discovery". [4]
He studied modern languages at Christ's College, Cambridge, from 1954 to 1957. While he was here, he devoted his time to self-taught sculpture and displayed his work at the Heffer Gallery. He sent an invitation to Anthony Caro, an older sculptor whom he admired. Much to his delight, Caro attended the exhibition, and the next year King took classes in Sculpture with him at Saint Martin's School of Art from 1957 to 1958. [5] The next year he spent working as an assistant to Henry Moore and teaching at Saint Martin's.
In 1990, King was made Professor Emeritus of the Royal College and was the President of the Royal Academy of Art from 1999 to 2004, presumably declining the usual knighthood. In 1992 William Feaver wrote in London's Observer that King is "the one sculptor of his generation prepared to jettison what he has proved himself good at in order to explore what cannot be programmed." He took over at a time when the academy was facing financial trouble and he has said it distracted him from his work.
King proved Feaver correct by turning unexpectedly to Japan and ceramics in 1993 and two years later making the powerful unglazed, vessel-themed works which were the focus of an exhibition in 2004. Richard Cork wrote about the sculptures:
Often pierced from one side to the other and interrupted by renegade protuberances, they end up conveying more emotional conflict than initially seems possible. But they possess optimism as well... That is why he is such a rewarding artist, and why each distinct phase in his ceaselessly resourceful career adds to the richness of his achievement.
The exhibition was presented in Yorkshire, London, and New York.
One sculpture titled Zen Garden, created by King and students from the Royal College of Art, remains available to see within Tout Quarry, Isle of Portland, Dorset, England.
In 2010, Phillip King was a recipient of the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. [6] He lived and worked in London until his death in July 2021 at the age of 87. [7]
Bill Woodrow is a British sculptor.
Sir Anthony Alfred Caro was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects. He began as a member of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moore early in his career. He was lauded as the greatest British sculptor of his generation.
Allen Jones is a British pop artist best known for his paintings, sculptures, and lithography. He was awarded the Prix des Jeunes Artistes at the 1963 Paris Biennale. He is a Senior Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2017 he returned to his home town to receive the award Honorary Doctor of Arts from Southampton Solent University
Events from the year 1962 in art.
Sir Alan Bowness CBE was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.
Henry Spencer Moore was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore also produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper.
Dhruva Mistry is an Indian sculptor.
Isaac Witkin was an internationally renowned modern sculptor born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Witkin entered Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1957 and studied under Sir Anthony Caro and alongside artists including Phillip King, William G. Tucker, David Annesley, and Michael Bolus. Witkin helped create a new style of sculpture which led to this New Generation of sculptors and their innovating abstract forms of modern sculpture reaching and changing the art world. Witkin's abstract works of usually brightly colored fiberglass or wood was noted for its "witty, Pop-Art look".
Bruce McLean is a Scottish sculptor, performance artist and painter.
William G. Tucker is a modernist British sculptor and modern art scholar.
George "Fowokan" Kelly is a Jamaican-born visual artist who lives in Britain and exhibits using the name "Fowokan". He is a largely self-taught artist, who has been practising sculpture since 1980. His work is full of the ambivalence he sees in the deep-rooted spiritual and mental conflict between the African and the European. Fowokan's work is rooted in the traditions of pre-colonial Africa and ancient Egypt rather than the Greco-Roman art of the west. He has also been a jeweller, essayist, poet and musician.
Charles William George Hadcock is a British sculptor known for his monumental sculptures that incorporate elements of geology, engineering, and mathematics. Hadcock's work also draws inspiration from music, philosophy, and poetry. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire.
Tim Scott is a British sculptor known for his abstract sculptures made from transparent acrylic and steel. While studying architecture, Scott also studied sculpture part-time at Saint Martin's School of Art with Sir Anthony Caro, where he also later taught. Inspired by the example of David Smith, Scott began to make sculptures using materials such as fibreglass, glass, metal, and acrylic sheets.
Robert Adams was an English sculptor and designer. Whilst not widely known outside of artistic circles, he was nonetheless regarded as one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. In a critical review of a retrospective mounted by the Gimpel Fils gallery in London in 1993, Brian Glasser of Time Out magazine described Adams as "the neglected genius of post-war British sculpture", a sentiment echoed by Tim Hilton in the Sunday Independent, who ranked Adams' work above that of his contemporaries, Ken Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick and Bernard Meadows.
The Geometry of Fear was an informal group or school of young British sculptors in the years after the Second World War. The term was coined by Herbert Read in 1952 in his description of the work of the eight British artists represented in the "New Aspects of British Sculpture" exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia of 1952.
Ivor Abrahams was a British sculptor, ceramicist and print maker best known for his polychrome sculptures and his stylised prints of garden scenes. His career long exploration of new subject matter, novel techniques and materials made his art dealer, James Mayor, describe him as Europe's equivalent of Robert Rauschenberg.
Born in South Africa, Michael Edward Bolus was an artist and teacher who settled in England in 1957 and studied at St Martin's School of Art from 1958 to 1962, studying under Anthony Caro. After a brief period living in Cape Town he returned to London in 1964 to begin a teaching post at St Martin's and the Central School of Art and Design. Bolus had his first UK solo exhibition at Waddington Galleries in 1968, which has exhibited a number of his sculptures since then.
David Annesley is a British sculptor who rose to prominence in the 1960s.
Roland Piché is a British artist and teacher. He is best known for working in the Abstract style across prints and sculptures, and his work appears in international collections in the UK, Brazil, the United States and Sweden.
John Panting (1940–1974) was an English-based New Zealand sculptor.
Prof Phillip King, sculptor; President, Royal Academy of Arts, 1999–2004; 79
Phillip King, sculptor, born 1 May 1934; died 27 July 2021
Exhibition Catalogues
Monographs