Sculptor and teacher, born in Kheredine, Tunisia, arriving in England in 1946. Studied modern languages at Cambridge University, 1954–7, and was at St Martin’s School of Art, 1957–8. After a year as Henry Moore’s assistant, King taught at St Martin’s, 1959–80. He was at Bennington College, Vermont, in 1964 and at Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, 1979–80, becoming professor of sculpture at Royal College of Art, 1980. In 1964 King had his first one-man show at Rowan Gallery, the first of a long series there. One-man shows at Richard Feigen Gallery, New York and Chicago, and the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, followed in 1966. King soon established a solid exhibiting reputation in group and one-man shows in Britain and overseas, work using a variety of materials from fibreglass and metal to wood and slate.
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In 1969 King won first prize at Socha Piestanskych, Czechosovakia, the year after his retrospective at Whitechapel Art Gallery. Further retrospectives included Hayward Gallery, 1981. Tate Gallery, Arts Council and Ulster Museum, Belfast, hold King’s work which although abstract was heraldic and symbolic in character. He was a trustee of the Tate Gallery, 1967–9. Among King’s commissions was Expo ’70, Tokyo. Elected RA in 1991, president 1999–04. Retrospective at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1992 which showed that King, originally a figurative sculptor, had after a long period of abstraction moved back to figuration in the late 1980s. In 1997 King had another retrospective at Forte di Belvedere, Florence, only the second English sculptor given this honour (the first was Henry Moore). Two notable sculptures by King are outside C & J Clark’s shoe factory at Street, Somerset. Lived near Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and in London.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
