| Grahame King | |
|---|---|
Grahame King |
|
| Birth name | Grahame Edwin King |
| Born | 23 February 1915 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 11 October 2008 Melbourne, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Field | Painter, Printmaker |
| Training | National Gallery School (1934-39), George Bell School; Central School of Art London, (1947-49). |
| Awards | Member of the Order of Australia 1991 for services to education. |
Grahame King was a prominent Australian printmaker. In the 1930s he helped pioneer the new art of chromo-photo-lithography and transformed developments in the colour advertising in the print industry. Grahame Lectured in Printmaking at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology from 1966-88. In 1966 Grahame was instrumental in setting up the Print Council of Australia where he was its first Honorary Secretary, and President c. 1979-84.[1] He taught printmaking at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and was awarded an Order of Australia 1991 for his services to education. In parallel with his teaching Graham worked on his own innovative art practice concentrating on creative monotypes and lithographs. He was also a skilled photographer, and used his photography for his art teaching and to inform his art practice.
Life And Work
Grahame was born in Melbourne and studied at the Working men's College (now RMIT) and at the Old National Gallery Art School from 1939 to 1942. He enlisted in the army in 1942 and served in Design Division where he worked on illustrated instruction books and manual until 1946. Being based in Melbourne Grahame was able to attend Saturday afternoon art classes with George Bell. In 1945 Grahame joined the Victorian Artists' Society and became its secretary and exhibitions manger. Grahame's painting at this time was influenced by George Bell's style of early modernism.[2]
After the war Grahame travelled to Europe. Based in England at The Abbey Arts Centre in Hertfordshire, he studied under Bernard Meninsky and also attended print making classes at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts. He also toured Europe and painted cubist-inspired oils and water-colours. Other Australian residents at The Abbey were the painters Leonard French, James Gleeson, and Peter Graham, sculptor Robert Klippel, and art historian Bernard Smith. Also at The Abbey he met his future wife the sculptor Inga Neufeld (Inge King) whom he married in 1950. The couple returned to Melbourne, Australia in 1951. In the same year Grahame and Inge launched their first joint exhibition. These works revealed a new personal style based on abstraction. From the early 1960s Graham's work concentrated on creative monotypes and lithographs.[3]
| “ | King's earliest Lithographs of 1962 were simply brilliant, not only in context of his own work, but within the broader context of the art of lithography. The use of lithographic crayons, the watery film of touche and the scraping back of surfaces to produce start contrasts in the surface textures were all properties which were unique to lithography and which King exploited with unerring skill.[4] | ” |
By the mid 1960s Grahame was recognised as one of Australia's foremost printmakers and with the establishment of the Print Council of Australian, he became one of the arts most prominent and active promoters, devoting many years of his life to steering the organisation and its activities.[5]
At the same time as his work with the Print Council, Grahame was teaching print making at RMIT (1961–1986), where he was an important influence on two generations of Melbourne's print makers.