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2007 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD GALA

~HONORING WILLIAM KING~
BIOGRAPHY
WILLIAM KING was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1925, and grew up in Coconut Grove, Miami. After attending the University of Florida between 1942 and 1944, he came to New York in 1945, enrolling that year at Cooper Union and graduating in 1948. The following year he went to Rome on a Fulbright scholarship. Beginning in 1953, he taught for three years at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and elsewhere. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was President of the National Academy of Design between 1994 and 1998. He is the father of Eli King and Amy King, and lives with his wife, Connie Fox, in East Hampton, New York. King’s earliest one-person shows were with the Alan Gallery, New York, beginning in 1954. The majority of his subsequent New York exhibitions were with the Terry Dintenfass Gallery. Of note in the writings about the artist are reviews by Fairfield Porter, in 1954 (in Art News) and 1960 (in The Nation), and numerous essays and reviews by Hilton Kramer. The fullest biographical account of the artist is by Gerald Nordland, in a 1994 gallery exhibition catalog entitled William King: Forty Years of Work in Wood.  
BORN:
 
1925 Jacksonville, Florida  
     
EDUCATION:  
   
1942 – 1944
University of Florida
  
1945 – 1948 Cooper Union Art School, New York  
1949
Brooklyn Museum Art School, New York
  
1949 – 1950
Academia dei Belle Arti, Rome
  
1952
Central School, London, England
  
     
TEACHING EXPERIENCE  
     
1952 – 1955
 Brooklyn Museum Art School, New York  
1956 - 1966
University of California, Berkeley
  
1968 – 1969
Art Students’ League, New York
  
1972 – 1973
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
  
  State University of New York, Potsdam, Fredonia, New Paltz, Jamestown, Oswego, Plattsburgh, Artist in Residence  
     
AWARDS    
     
1948
Sculpture Prize, Cooper Union Art School, New York
  
1949 – 1950 Fulbright Grant  
1951
Margaret Tiffany Blake Fresco Award
  
1964
Augustus St. Gaudens Medal, Cooper Union, New York
  
1974
Creative Artists Public Service Award and Grant
  
1980
Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan, Distinction Prize
  
1986
National Academy of Design, New York, Gold Medal  
1995
 American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, Louise Nevelson Award  
1997
Guild Hall of East Hampton, Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, Visual Arts Award  
     
EXHIBITIONS SOLO (selected)  
     
1954, 1955, 1961
Alan Gallery, New York,
 
1970 San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, California  
1970
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California
  
1971
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana  
1971
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
  
1971 Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida  
1971
Dag Hammerskjold Plaza, New York
  
1971, 1982
 Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts  
1972, 1987
Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, Alabama
  
1972
Jacksonville Art Museum, Jacksonville, Florida
  
1972 Hopkins Art Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire  
1972
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts
  
1972
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
  
1972
Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Nashville, Tennessee
  
1972
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska  
1973
Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
  
1973
University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
  
1973
William Benton Museum, University of Connecticut  
1974
State Universities of New York (traveling exhibitions)
  
1976
Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York
  
1977
Zabriskie Gallery, New York
  
1980 Louise Himmelfarb Gallery, Water Mill, New York  
1981
 Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, Maine  
1985, 1987
Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California
  
1986
 Hooks-Epstein Gallery, Houston, Texas  
1987
Hunter Museum, Chattanooga, Tennessee
  
1987
David Heath Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
  
1988
Marilyn Pearly Gallery, New York
  
1989
Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida
  
1989
The Atrium at Maison Aican, Quebec, Canada
  
1990
 Brunnier Gallery and Museum, Iowa  
1992
Simmons Visual Arts Center, Brenau College, Gainesville, Georgia  
1995
Pitt Program Council, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  
1996
Seacon Square, Bangkok, Thailand
  
1962, 1964 – 1971, 1973, 1976, 1980 – 1984, 1986, 1989 – 1992, 1994, 1997  
  Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York  
1997
Miami Dade Junior College, Miami, Florida
  
1998, 1999 Lizan Tops Gallery, East Hampton, New York  
1998
Dorothy Blau Gallery, Miami, Florida
  
1999
Brenda Taylor Gallery, New York
  
2000
Kraushaar Galleries, New York
  
2001
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey
  
2001
125 Maiden Lane, New York  
2005 Pamela Williams Gallery, Amagansett, New York  
2004, 2006, 2007
 Alexandre Gallery, New York  
     
GROUP (selected)  
 
1955
Museum of Modern Art, New York. New Talent
  
1955 Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent Sculpture USA  
1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968
 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Annual Exhibitions
  
1972-1973 Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Recent Figure Sculpture  
  Exhibition traveled to Museum of Art, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York  
1973
Art Gallery of Budapest, Hungary. Second International Biennial: Small Sculpture
  
1974 Monumenta I, New port, Rhode Island  
1975
International Pavilion of Humor, Montreal, Canada. Man and His World
  
1976
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Woodworks
  
1976
Grand Palais, Paris, France. Contemporary Arts Show
  
1976
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts. Skowhegan Retrospective
  
Exhibition traveled to Colby College, Waterville, Maine
  
1981
Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida. International Florida Artists
  
1982
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio. Shape in Sculpture
  
1982
National Academy of Design, New York. 157th Annual Exhibition
  
1982
Brainard Art Gallery, SUNY Potsdam, New York. Directions in Metal
  
1988
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. Drawings on East End
  
1995
Staller Center for the Arts, SUNY Stonybrook, New York. Eighteen Suffolk Artists
  
1995
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. Invitational Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture
  
1995
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. Face Value: American Portraits
  
1995
The White House, Washington, DC. Twentieth Century American Sculpture
  
1998 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin. Figurative Tradition  
1999
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. Group Exhibition
  
1999 Grounds for Sculpture, Princeton, New Jersey. Fall/Winter  
     
SCULPTURE COMMISSIONS (selected)
     
1978
Government Center, Akron, Ohio
  
1979
Detroit Receiving Hospital, Detroit, Michigan
  
1979
 Laurel Shopping Center, Laurel, Maryland  
1979
Madison Art and Civic Center, Madison, Wisconsin
  
1980
Lincoln Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana
  
1983 Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida  
1985 Sterling Plaza, New York  
1985
Alaska Council on the Arts, Anchorage, Alaska
  
1986
Schlotzky’s, Austin, Texas  
1986
 Park Place, Clearwater, Florida  
1986
Vision, Palo Alto, California  
1987
 Florida State Council on the Arts, Lakeland, Florida  
1990
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
  
1995 South Street Pedestrian Bridge, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  
     
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (selected)  
     
 
Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania
  
  Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas  
 
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
  
  Columbus Museum, Ohio  
  Fine Arts Center, Cheeckwood, Nashville, Tennessee  
 
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
  
 
Hopkins Art Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
  
 
First National Bank of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
 
Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York
  
  Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York  
 
Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York
  
 
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
  
 
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
  
 
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
  
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  
  New York University, New York  
 
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
  
 
State Universities of New York, Potsdam, New Paltz, Oswego, Plattsburgh, Jamestown, Fredonia
  
  Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  
 
University of California, Berkeley
  
  University of Massachusetts, Amherst  
 
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
  
  Whitney Museum of American Art  

Photo Credit: 12th Grade, 2002, balsa polychrome, 30 1/4 inches high, Courtesy of Alexandre Gallery.