The Life and Work of Grahame King

Grahame King was a Australian printmaker. He has been described as the “patron saint of contemporary Australian printmaking”. ((Grishin, 41)) He helped set up the Print Council of Australia, of which he was the first Honorary Secretary and was later President. He taught printmaking at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) from 1966 to 1988. In 1991, he was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to education. As well as his teaching, King produced his own art work, concentrating on lithographs and monotypes. He was also a skilled photographer and used his photography both in his teaching and in his practice.

Life

Grahame Edwin King was born in Melbourne on 23 February 1915. He left school when he was about fifteen and started work as a clerk, then taught himself ticket-writing and got a job with a store. ((Gleeson, 16.)) In 1934, he started studying commercial art at night at the Working Men’s College of Melbourne (which became Melbourne Technical College and later the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)). Later he went to the Elton Fox Academy, which taught commercial art and design as well as traditional painting skills: a useful training for someone who wanted to make his living from art, as Grahame King did. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 92.)) In the late 1930s, King helped pioneer the new art of chromo-photolithography which transformed colour advertising in the print industry. ((Jenny Zimmer, obituary, 16.)) He was able to make use of this expertise for the rest of his career. ((Gleeson, 17.))

During this period, King spent his weekends going out with other young artists to paint landscapes. Then in 1939, the year of the highly influential exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art in Melbourne sponsored by the MelbourneHerald, King started attending night classes at the art school of the National Gallery of Victoria. He later won a scholarship which covered a year’s tuition at the Gallery School and was able to persuade his employer to give him time off during the day to attend classes. ((Gleeson, 18))

King enlisted in the army in 1942 and served until 1946. He was attached to the Design Division and worked on the preparation and illustration of instruction books and manuals. ((Grishin, 15.)) Being based in Melbourne, he was also able to attend Saturday afternoon art classes with George Bell. Bell had recently returned from overseas and had brought back news of European Modernism and enthusiasm for artists such as Modigliani, Derain, Braque, Matisse and Picasso. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 93.)) King later said that Bell “opened our eyes to modern art and it was a tremendous experience”. ((Gleeson, 19.)) While in the army, King started to exhibit with other serving artists. Their first exhibition was at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne in 1943. ((Grishin, 15.)) King’s painting at this time shows the influence of George Bell’s style of early modernism. It was also during his time in the army that King first met the artist John Brack, who remained a friend until the latter’s death in 1999. ((Gleeson, 18.))

In 1945, King joined the Victorian Artists’ Society and soon became its secretary and exhibitions manager. ((Grishin, 19.))

In late 1947, like many young Australians of that period, King went to Europe. He based himself in England at The Abbey Arts Centre in Hertfordshire. Other Australian artists resident at The Abbey at that time included the painters Leonard French, James Gleeson and Noel Counihan, the sculptor Robert Klippel, and the art historian Bernard Smith. ((Grishin, 20.)) King studied drawing with Bernard Meninsky and attended print-making classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. ((Grishin, 20.)) Later he toured Britain and Europe, producing many drawings and water-colours of buildings and scenery. These works showed him to be an “astute observer”, with a “keen visual eye and [a] mature sense of design, composition and colour”. ((Alessi, 4.)) They are now held by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. ((Gift of Inge King, 2009.)) In Europe, King saw the work of Cubists, Surrealists and other abstract artists such as Paul Klee. He responded to the “modernist modes involving the flattening and fragmentation of the image and the use of free-flowing line to express movement and rhythm” and particularly to the work of Georges Braque. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 95.)) This experience defined the direction of King’s own work which became increasingly abstract from then on. In 1949, he produced some monoprints, which were later shown in Melbourne. ((18 Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 95-6.))

While he was at The Abbey, King met his future wife, the Berlin-born sculptor, Inge Neufeld (Inge King), whom he married in 1950. She had been trained in Berlin and Glasgow, but had spent some time in New York, where she encountered American Abstract Expressionism ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 96.)) . Her own work was also tending towards abstraction. The compatibility of their artistic interests and their support for each other influenced the later development of their art for both of them.

The couple moved back to Melbourne in early 1951. They held their first joint exhibition in Melbourne later that year, with paintings and drawings by Grahame and sculptures and jewelery by Inge. ((Grishin, 25.)) They took part in other exhibitions during the following years. However, for the decade after their return, most of Grahame King’s time and energy was taken up with earning a living and with building their house at Warrandyte This house, designed by the architect Robin Boyd, now has a State Heritage Trust classification. ((Grishin, 25.)) During this time, King had no access to a printing press, but he continued to paint, with his work becoming increasingly abstract. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 117.))

In 1961, Vic Greenhouse, head of the art department at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) invited King to join the group of printmakers, which included Fred Williams and Hertha Kluge Pott, who were allowed to use its printing facilities on one day per week. ((Gleeson, 1.)) The following year (1962), RMIT bought a lithography press. King was one of the few able to use it. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne Story”, 109.)) From then on King concentrated on producing lithographs and creative monotypes. In 1965, he acquired a small off-set litho press (12 ins x 15 ins or about 30.5 x 38.1 cm) for his studio at Warrandyte. Although this press was “a bit on the small side”, by designing for its limitations King could make larger prints. ((Gleeson, 2-3.)) Some years later, he acquired a larger press which “gave him scope to wield a longer, wider brush-mark on the lithographic plate”. ((Jenny Zimmer, catalogue essay, 19.))

The standing of printmaking as an art form in Australia had been improving for some time. In 1963, the Studio One Printmakers, based around the print studio at RMIT, had its inaugural exhibition. It included several of King’s lithographs. The exhibition toured public and commercial galleries in Australia and also went to Tokyo. Another important exhibition was the Australian Print Survey, curated by Daniel Thomas of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which was shown in all the major Australian cities in 1963-4. ((Grishin, 35.)) At the National Gallery of Victoria, Dr Ursula Hoff had established a serious collection of prints and drawings and was actively collecting Australian prints. ((Grishin, 33.))

By the mid 1960s, King was recognised as one of Australia’s foremost printmakers. In 1965, Dr Hoff convened a meeting of printmakers which led to the establishment of the Print Council of Australia (PCA). King was on the inaugural committee. He continued to work with the Print Council for many years, becoming one of the most prominent and active promoters of printing as an art. During his time with the PCA, he was particularly involved with organising its annual programmes and with preparing and presenting exhibitions, which toured to the state capitals and to many regional towns. The PCA also hosted a number of international exhibitions. ((Grishin, 42.)) King was also associated with the Australian Print Workshop from its inception in 1981. ((Grishin, 160.))

In 1966, King was appointed Lecturer in Painting, Drawing and Lithography at RMIT. He worked there until he retired in 1988. ((Grishin, 160.)) He was an important influence on two generations of Melbourne’s printmakers.

In 1969, King received a British Council grant for a study tour of printmaking facilities in England. He also visited France, Switzerland, Italy and America, where he visited the Pratt Graphics Centre in New York. Later, in 1974, the Kings visited Europe and also Japan, where one of their daughters was studying. King was able to study Japanese printmaking and papermaking techniques. King noted later that this experience had been important for his work. ((Gleeson, 11.)) In 1976, the Kings again went to Europe, visiting Germany, Holland and Norway and returned via Japan. (( Grishin, 45.)) There were further study trips to Europe and Japan in 1982 and to America in 1990.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, King made several trips to the Northern Territory and Arnham Land and later to the Barrier Reef. These provided another important influence on his work. Images inspired by the scenery and the aboriginal rock art that he saw there were incorporated into his lithographs from this period. ((Bright, “Lithographs”, 66.)) In the 1980s, he started to paint again and also to work in mixed media. In 1991, King was awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) for services to art education.

King continued to exhibit until a few years before his death in 2008. His work is represented in a number of major collections including that of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

Work

King was able to draw well, and continued to draw throughout his life. ((Gleeson, 10.)) Vincent Alessi notes of King’s European drawings that “the drawings are not merely documentary sketches of places visited. Rather they quietly scratch the surface, capturing the rhythm, heart and sensibilities of a location and its people. It is this aspect that best reveals King’s humanity”. ((Alessi, 7.)) Jane Eckett says that: “For Grahame King drawing represented much more than simply a means of describing the world. It was his way of learning about the world, synthesizing observation, thought, feeling and intuition.” ((Eckett, 9. This book includes a collection of King’s drawings.))

King made two significant decisions about his art. The first was in the late 1940s, when he decided to focus on Abstract Expressionism. The second was in the early 1960s, when he decided to concentrate on print-making, particularly lithography. ((Bright, “Lithographs”, 59.)) Sacha Grishin notes of King’s prints at this time that:

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 stark contrasts in the surface textures were all properties which were unique to lithography and which King exploited with unerring skill. ((Grishin, 33-35.)) King said of his work with prints in the early 1960s: 

It helped me as my painting was in a transition period. I was still struggling with the academic background and the contemporary scene that I had been working with Gothic Tracery for many years. The printmaking was a relief – I could be free of the academic things. … [The print, Gothic Tracery,] is an early one. I was concerned with producing work in which the identity of the hand and how it was made were completely lost. I can’t copy my work – it happens once. It is highly technical in one sense. Whereas the average artist moves into lithography simply, by drawing with a crayon or a brush on a plate – you can see exactly what he is doing and why he is doing it – I was trying to make marks on the plate so that you could not see how or why they were done. ((Gleeson, 1.))

King said that he did not do detailed preliminary drawings for his lithographs. ((Gleeson, 2.)) Nor did he make an artist’s print when printing his lithographs. Rather, he printed the whole edition in one colour, then added other colours in subsequent print runs until “the print says it is finished … At some stage, the work of art takes over and I have to understand it.” (( Gleeson, 4.))

Jenny Zimmer says of King’s practice:

That the natural world is King’s inspiration is borne out by his life-long habit of making drawings and taking photographs of its phenomena before returning to the studio to compose his ‘abstractions’. The latter process sometimes evolves over a number of years, only to be resolved after considerable struggle. A print may go through several stages of production and sometimes these stages are years apart and the result of considerable contemplation. This is the mark of an abstractionist who is not prepared to allow pure intuition, emotion or improvisation to determine the end result. ((Jenny Zimmer, catalogue essay, 12.))

An important influence on King’s work were his trips to Japan in 1974 and subsequently. He said of his first trip: “It was tremendously exciting. I had never concerned myself with any eastern philosophy in any depth. Because we had a built-in interpreter [his daughter who was studying there] … we were able to do things that the tourist could not possibly do. Looking back, I realise that it was terribly important for my work, although unconscious, it somehow removed some inhibitions.” ((Gleeson, 11.)) Later he said: “I wish I had met the East twenty years earlier – I would have learned something positive about calligraphy. I love the calligraphic mark.” ((Gleeson, 15.))

Significant influences on King’s later work were the landscape of northern Australia and the aboriginal art that is found there. Zimmer notes that:

it was only after 1980 when King made his first trip to Arnham Land with a group of bird-watchers that references to Northern Australia began to dominate. The first prints described the giant ant-hills, sparse vegetation and rock formations which usually present memorable experiences for travellers. However, from 1981 to 1984, he focussed his attention on the interiors of caves and rock formations and, using highly sophisticated lithographic techniques, produced his fleeting impressions of ancient Aboriginal markings. … These impressions of Mimi-like figures, fish, turtles and other Aboriginal images were a result of what for King was the awesome experience of witnessing such ancient and significant human mark-making. ((Zimmer, “Melbourne, Story” 115. See also Grahame King and Jim Allen, An Australian Bird Watchers’ PocketBook.))

Grahame King usually did his own printing. But in 1998, the Australian Print Workshop (APW) invited King to produce a set of lithographs, which were then printed by the APW printer, Martin King (no relation). Martin King wrote of that experience:

He directed me with precision to the subtleties of his drawing, indicating the textures and nuances of the litho washes and crayon marks that I was to endeavour to maintain throughout the printing process. His prints appear, at first sight, random and arbitrary. However there is an understated rigour and sense of structure in the compositions that comes with Grahame’s feelings for and meditation over the subject. ((King, 87.))

Later Martin King commented:

I had seen a number of Grahame’s drawings from life, observed with a deft eye, and executed with the confidence of a skilled draughtsman. However, his prints go far beyond mere representation, reminding me of the texture and substance of nature and life itself. … The beauty of the works is that although they appear gestural and intuitive, he has refined the complex web of colour, shape and idea into an ordered and systematic order of printing. ((King, 87.))

Martin King summed up his experience of making these prints for Grahame King: “I now know why Grahame has long been an inspiration and mentor to artists and printmakers. His art, his knowledge and his passion for printmaking have all been shared in his most distinguished way.” ((King, 87.))

In the mid-1990s, King produced some large, computer-assisted, experimental paintings. Caroline Field described what he did:

King’s process involved making a composite of two small studies, often dissimilar in composition and colour, which were strategically placed one above the other to create an integrated image. A digital impression was then made and enlarged. Its fine pixelation invigorated the image, which was then transferred to canvas. King used the new computer-generated technology to great effect. However, the compositional structure that underlies [the] works from this series is essentially traditional. ((Grahame King: “Artist’s statement” in the catalogue for Grahame King: Recent Paintings, Eastgate Gallery,7 – 28 August, 1996.))

King said of this work that: “These paintings have evolved from a lifetime’s response to the study of form and colour in nature and are an attempt to express the perpetual excitement of new visual experience.” ((Field, 146.))

Bibliography

Notes