The Peter King Archive has now
been extended to include over 1000 entries giving a detailed picture of the
life and work of the artist.
King’s untimely death at the age of twenty-nine has meant that he has been
largely omitted from the history of 1950s British art. His work has now been
made available to a wider audience through a digitising project carried out by
the artist’s son, Dr Mike King, at London Metropolitan University, and funded by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
King was undoubtedly a prolific artist whose exceptional talent was
recognised by Henry Moore, who appointed him as his assistant along with Anthony
Caro. He was part of a group of artists associated with Moore’s studio, with the
teaching team at St Martin’s School of Art, with artists living at the Abbey Art
Centre in London, and with Victor Musgrave’s Gallery One in Soho.
The full digital archive is now available on
VADS and includes examples of Peter King’s
sculptures in a wide variety of materials as well as his works on paper, film
puppets, and memorabilia.
The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) is based at the
University for the Creative Arts.
It was founded to provide services to the academic community 12 years ago
and since that time it has built an online collection of more than 100,000
images which are copyright cleared for teaching, learning, and research in the
UK.