
Gordon King
Gordon King is one of Britain's most popular water colour artists
producing stunning originals and beautiful limited edition prints.
Originals can command over £10,000 and his beautiful limited edition
prints are avidly collected. He is best known for his studies of
the female form with limited edition prints taken from a range of
studies created often from his studios in Buckinghamshire.
For the Darcey Bussell collection, Gordon was delighted to visit the
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to watch Darcey and in rehearsal for
'Serenade' which became one of the limited edition prints. He sketched
and photographed her before producing a number of studies from which
Darcey selected 3 to become limited editions:
In Rehearsal, Serenade and La Bayadere.
Limited editions of 1,000 were painstakingly produced. These were then
hand numbered and individually signed both by Gordon King and
Darcey
Bussell.
Gordon King Biographical NotesBorn in 1939, Gordon's talent came to the fore early on and he won
several major art competitions from the age of seven. After leaving
school he concentrated on figurative illustration, undergoing training
at Carlton Studios in London and studying art at Reading University. In
his early twenties he became a freelance illustrator, but in the
mid-seventies he gave up illustration to become a full-time painter.
Success came quite rapidly with work, mainly figurative subjects,
accepted for showing at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and at the
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. His paintings of girls in
natural surroundings soon became his trade mark and the popularity of
his watercolours in the early eighties together with the success of his
prints, limited editions and silk screens brought him the high profile
that he has today. In 1995, his first book "A Romance with Art" was
published with a foreword by HRH The Princess Royal, featuring a wide
range of both oils and watercolours. He exhibits worldwide and has been
featured in a number of television programmes including the BBC2 arts
series "Close-Up" , Channel 5's "Open House" and Sky Sports at the PGA
short course championships.
He has been very active in support of various charities, including
projects for the Save the Children Fund, painting in front of a live
audience for the BBC's "Children in Need" appeal and painting a portrait
of Sir Norman Wisdom in aid of the RNLI. One of his most recent projects
is a set of three limited edition prints of the dancer Darcey Bussell,
signed by her, in aid of the Alzheimer's Society. In 1999, to celebrate
his sixtieth birthday, Gordon's second book "Drawn to Life" was
published. In addition he received a prestigious award from the Fine Art
Trade Guild who voted him "Published Artist of the Year" |