Biography
Gordon King (British, 1939–2022) was one of the United Kingdom's most popular figurative watercolourists, celebrated for romantic studies of women set in soft, natural light. Born on the Fife coast of Scotland and raised in Reading, England, he was winning art competitions by the age of seven. He trained at the renowned Carlton Studios in London and studied life drawing at Reading University, then spent his twenties as a freelance illustrator for magazines and advertising agencies before turning to fine art full-time in the mid-1970s.
Romantic Figurative Watercolour
King's mastery of watercolour and his gift for capturing grace and atmosphere made him a fixture of the British art scene; he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, and his graceful figurative subjects reached a wide international audience through prints, limited editions, and silk-screens. His 1995 book A Romance with Art carried a foreword by HRH The Princess Royal, and in 1999 the Fine Art Trade Guild named him Published Artist of the Year.
Collecting Gordon King
For collectors, his signed, limited-edition prints and silk-screens are the accessible way to own that soft, romantic vision — among the most collected British figurative work of its kind.