Grahame King
Encyclopedia
RMIT University
RMIT University is an Australian public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. It has two branches, referred to as RMIT University in Australia and RMIT International University in Vietnam....
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. He taught printmaking at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT
RMIT University
RMIT University is an Australian public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. It has two branches, referred to as RMIT University in Australia and RMIT International University in Vietnam....
) and was awarded an Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
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
RMIT University
RMIT University is an Australian public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. It has two branches, referred to as RMIT University in Australia and RMIT International University in Vietnam....
) 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
George Bell (painter)
George Frederick Henry Bell was an Australian painter.He was born in Kew, Victoria, the son of George Bell, a public servant, and educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1895-1903...
. 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.
After the war Grahame travelled to Europe. Based in England at The Abbey Arts Centre in Hertfordshire
The Abbey Arts Centre
The Abbey Arts Centre is located at 89 Park Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire EN4 9QX, England.It was originally owned by William Ohly, an art dealer who ran the Berkeley Galleries in Davies Street, London....
, he studied under Bernard Meninsky
Bernard Meninsky
Bernard Meninsky was a figurative artist, painter of figures and landscape in oils, watercolour and gouache, draughtsman and teacher. He was born in Karotopin now in the Ukraine but raised in Liverpool where he attended the Liverpool School of Art in 1906 after initially attending evening classes...
and also attended print making classes at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts. He also toured Europe and painted cubist-inspired
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
oils and water-colours. Other Australian residents at The Abbey were the painters Leonard French
Leonard French
Leonard William French OBE is an Australian artist, known principally for major stained glass works.French was born in Brunswick, Victoria...
, James Gleeson
James Gleeson
James Timothy Gleeson was Australia's foremost artist. He was also a poet, critic, writer and curator. He played a significant role in the Australian art scene, including serving on the board of the National Gallery of Australia.-Early life:Gleeson was born in the Sydney district of Hornsby and he...
, and Peter Graham
Peter Benjamin Graham
Peter Benjamin Graham , was an Australian visual artist, a master craftsman in a variety of printing techniques, and an art theorist. Peter saw no contradiction between abstract and figurative art...
, sculptor Robert Klippel
Robert Klippel
Robert Klippel AO was an Australian constructivist sculptor and teacher. He is often described in contemporary art literature as Australia's greatest sculptor. Throughout his career he produced some 1,300 pieces of sculpture and approximately 5,000 drawings.-Biography:Klippel was born in Potts...
, and art historian Bernard Smith
Bernard William Smith
Bernard William Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic.-Biography:Smith was born in Balmain, Sydney to Charles Smith and Rose Anne Tierney on 3 October 1916. In 1941, he married his first wife, Kate Challis, who died in 1989. Smith married his second wife, Margaret Forster,...
. Also at The Abbey he met his future wife the sculptor Inga Neufeld (Inge King
Inge King
Inge King is a prominent Australian sculptor, who has many significant public, commercial, and private sculpture commissions to her credit....
) whom he married in 1950. The couple returned to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, 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.
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.
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.
External links
- Images of Grahame King's prints at Prints and Printmaking http://www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au/catalogues/artist/5946/grahame-king.aspx.
- 'Patron saint' of printmaking, Jenny Zimmer, An obituary in The Age, 22 October 2008
- A Modern Grand Tour - Grahame King's European Drawings, 1947- 1949. La Trobe University Art Museum 24 February, to 10 April 2009 http://www.latrobe.edu.au/artmuseum/.