William King (b.1925) Abstract Sculptures
American, 1925-2015
American artist William King was best known for his comedic sculptures — working in clay and a range of metals, he created a wide variety of toy-like figures over the years that were cartoonish in their contorted forms and unlikely poses. King emphasized posture and body language in his art and poked fun at societal conventions as well as how we navigate the trials of our daily lives in a cheerful, clever manner.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, King grew up in Coconut Grove, a historic Miami neighborhood. He studied at the University of Florida and later moved to New York City, finishing his studies at the Cooper Union in the late 1940s. King subsequently traveled to Rome on a Fulbright scholarship and explored the arts of Europe, including in London and Athens. In 1953, after returning to the United States, he began teaching at the Brooklyn Museum Art School.
In 1954, King had his first solo show at Alan Gallery in New York and continued to exhibit in and around the city until 2014. He worked across a wide variety of media, most frequently metal, such as bronze, aluminum and steel of varying finishes. His more serious pieces saw an integration of darker materials with rougher textures to amplify his figures' reflective, dismayed or generally somber expressions.
King received numerous awards for his work, including acknowledgments from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission, as well as an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute.
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Artist: William King (b.1925)
The Test, Assembled Kinetic Modernist Sculpture Puzzle Construction
By William King (b.1925)
Located in Surfside, FL
"The Test," 1970
Aluminum sculpture in 5 parts.
Artist's cipher and AP stamped into male figure, front,
20 5/16" x 12 1/2" x 6 5/7" (approx.)
American sculptor King is most noted for his long-limbed figurative public art sculptures depicting people engaged in everyday activities such as reading or conversing. He created his busts and figures in a variety of materials, including clay, wood, metal, and textiles. William Dickey King was born in Jacksonville, Florida. As a boy, William made model airplanes and helped his father and older brother build furniture and boats.
He came to New York, where he attended the Cooper Union and began selling his early sculptures even before he graduated. He later studied with the sculptor Milton Hebald and traveled to Italy on a Fulbright grant.
Mr. King worked in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, burlap and aluminum. He worked both big and small, from busts and toylike figures to large public art pieces depicting familiar human poses — a seated, cross-legged man reading; a Western couple (he in a cowboy hat, she in a long dress) holding hands; a tall man reaching down to tug along a recalcitrant little boy; a crowd of robotic-looking men walking in lock step. Mr. King’s work often reflected the times, taking on fashions and occasional politics. In the 1960s and 1970s, his work featuring African-American figures (including the activist Angela Davis, with hands cuffed behind her back) evoked his interest in civil rights.
But for all its variation, what unified his work was a wry observer’s arched eyebrow, the pointed humor and witty rue of a fatalist. His figurative sculptures, often with long, spidery legs and an outlandishly skewed ratio of torso to appendages, use gestures and posture to suggest attitude and illustrate his own amusement with the unwieldiness of human physical equipment.
His subjects included tennis players and gymnasts, dancers and musicians, and he managed to show appreciation of their physical gifts and comic delight at their contortions and costumery. His suit-wearing businessmen often appeared haughty or pompous; his other men could seem timid or perplexed or awkward. Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, he tended to depict women more reverentially, though in his portrayals of couples the fragility and tender comedy inherent in couplehood settled equally on both partners.
His first solo exhibit took place in 1954 at the Alan Gallery in New York City. King was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003, and in 2007 the International Sculpture Center honored him with the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. Mr. King’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hirshorn Museum at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere.
Reviews of his exhibitions frequently began with the caveat that even though the work was funny, it was also serious, displaying superior technical skills, imaginative vision and the bolstering weight of a range of influences, from the ancient Etruscans to American folk art to 20th-century artists including Giacometti, Calder and Elie Nadelman.
The New York Times critic Holland Cotter once described Mr. King’s sculpture as “comical-tragical-maniacal,” and “like Giacomettis conceived by John Cheever.”
Category
1970s American Modern William King (b.1925) Abstract Sculptures
Materials
Metal
Reclining Figure (woman)
By William King (b.1925)
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
William King (1925-2015). Reclining figure, ca. 1965. Cast and welded bronze, 7 x 9.5 x 5 inches. Unsigned.
William King, a sculptor in a variety of materials whose human figures traced social attitudes through the last half of the 20th century, often poking sly and poignant fun at human follies and foibles, died on March 4 at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 90.
His death was confirmed by Scott Chaskey, who is married to Mr. King's stepdaughter, Megan Chaskey.
Mr. King worked in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, burlap and aluminum. He worked both big and small, from busts and toylike figures to large public art pieces depicting familiar human poses -- a seated, cross-legged man reading; a Western couple (he in a cowboy hat, she in a long dress) holding hands; a tall man reaching down to tug along a recalcitrant little boy; a crowd of robotic-looking men walking in lock step.
But for all its variation, what unified his work was a wry observer's arched eyebrow, the pointed humor and witty rue of a fatalist. His figurative sculptures, often with long, spidery legs and an outlandishly skewed ratio of torso to appendages, use gestures and posture to suggest attitude and illustrate his own amusement with the unwieldiness of human physical equipment.
His subjects included tennis players and gymnasts, dancers and musicians, and he managed to show appreciation of their physical gifts and comic delight at their contortions and costumery. His suit-wearing businessmen often appeared haughty or pompous; his other men could seem timid or perplexed or awkward. Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, he tended to depict women more reverentially, though in his portrayals of couples the fragility and tender comedy inherent in couplehood settled equally on both partners.
Mr. King's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere. But the comic element of his work probably caused his reputation to suffer.
Reviews of his exhibitions frequently began with the caveat that even though the work was funny, it was also serious, displaying superior technical skills, imaginative vision and the bolstering weight of a range of influences, from the ancient Etruscans to American folk art to 20th-century artists including Giacometti, Calder. and Elie Nadelman.
The critic Hilton Kramer, one of Mr. King's most ardent advocates, wrote in a 1970 essay accompanying a New York gallery exhibit that he was, "among other things, an amusing artist, and nowadays this can, at times, be almost as much a liability as an asset."
A "preoccupation with gesture is the focus of King's sculptural imagination," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Everything that one admires in his work - the virtuoso carving, the deft handling of a wide variety of materials, the shrewd observation and resourceful invention - all this is secondary to the concentration on gesture. The physical stance of the human animal as it negotiates the social arena, the unconscious gait that the body assumes in making its way in the social medium, the emotion traced by the course of a limb, a torso, a head, the features of a face, a coiffure or a costume - from a keen observation of these materials King has garnered a large stock of sculptural images notable for their wit, empathy, simplicity and psychological precision."
William Dickey King...
Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract William King (b.1925) Abstract Sculptures
Materials
Bronze
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1960s Pop Art Unique Cast Bronze Sculpture Americana Folk Art William King
By William King (b.1925)
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Mid-Century Modern wrought iron sculpture a person with oversize top, shorts, and carrying a hat, signed, artist's monogram and cipher, further mounted on a plaster base. 28" H. This a unique piece. It is interesting in that it speaks of a transition, leading into the later aluminum public pieces that kind of defined his work in the 70's.
According to his estate this is most probably cast bronze. It might possibly be wrought iron..
William Dickey King...
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Mid-Century Modern cut steel sculpture depicting a man in bell bottom pants standing casually with a cigarette in his right hand, His left hand is in his back pocket, signed and dated, artist's monogram and cipher and "1968." This a unique piece. It is interesting in that it speaks of a transition, leading into the later aluminum public pieces that kind of defined his work in the 70's.
According to his estate this is most probably cast and sheet aluminum. It might possibly be steel.
William Dickey King...
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1960s Pop Art William King (b.1925) Abstract Sculptures
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The Test, Assembled Kinetic Modernist Sculpture Puzzle Construction
By William King (b.1925)
Located in Surfside, FL
"The Test," 1970
Aluminum sculpture in 5 parts.
Artist's cipher and AP stamped into male figure, front,
20 5/16" x 12 1/2" x 6 5/7" (approx.)
American sculptor King is most noted for his long-limbed figurative public art sculptures depicting people engaged in everyday activities such as reading or conversing. He created his busts and figures in a variety of materials, including clay, wood, metal, and textiles. William Dickey King...
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1970s American Modern William King (b.1925) Abstract Sculptures
Materials
Metal
H 20.5 in W 12.5 in D 6.75 in
William King (b.1925) abstract sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic William King (b.1925) abstract sculptures available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by William King (b.1925) in metal, bronze and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Pop Art style. Not every interior allows for large William King (b.1925) abstract sculptures, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Robert Indiana, Romero Britto, and Jeff Koons. William King (b.1925) abstract sculptures prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,000 and tops out at $12,000, while the average work can sell for $7,400.