Featured work by Gordon King

Painting has been my life for as long as I can remember. Having won numerous competitions as a child I went on to study Life Drawing at Reading University Art School, then trained as a figurative illustrator at the prestigious Carlton Studios in London. Following my National Service in Paris as a Draughtsman in the Royal Signals (where I still managed to spend most of my time painting) I spent the next few years working freelance, illustrating for national magazines, books and advertising agencies as well as doing portrait commissions.

I had my first one-man show in 1971, opened by the late Sid James, and subsequently exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour. My first national best selling print ‘My Fair Lady’ was published in 1983 and I have now been in print for over 30 years with numerous one-man shows.

In 1999, to celebrate my 60th birthday, my second book ‘Drawn to Life’ was published featuring paintings from my exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery in the ICC, Birmingham. That same year I was voted ‘Published Artist of the Year’ by the Fine Art Trade Guild and had a painting accepted into the Singer & Friedlander Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.

Charitable projects have included Save the Children with HRH The Princess Royal, who also wrote the forward to my first book ‘A Romance with Art’; BBC’s Children in Need Appeal; a portrait of Sir Norman Wisdom on the Black Watch Cruise Ship in aid of the RNLI, and three limited editions of Darcey Bussell in aid of the Alzheimer’s’ Society.