"Sculpture is drawing from a thousand different angles" - Inge King
Vibrant, articulate and passionate - Inge King is one of Australia’s foremost sculptors. Her work has always been on a grand scale. Her public sculptures invite exploration - to walk through, slide down, sit on or just canoodle around.
This insightful portrait of sculptor, Inge King reveals the creative processes involved in making her large public sculptures. Featuring fascinating early footage and recent interviews this film chronicles her life's work and vision.
Inge King was born in Berlin in 1918. She studied sculpture at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts but was forced to flee in 1939. She continued her studies in the UK, later marrying an Australian painter, Grahame King she met in an artist’s colony outside London. King arrived in Melbourne in 1951 to find that modern sculpture hadn’t shown its face. It was tough going at first, but this determined woman managed to raise a young family and made striking modern jewellery to supplement the family income.
Welded steel became her medium in 1959, influenced by her engagement with Abstract Expressionism in New York and she began creating non-representational sculpture inspired by the Australian bush.
In 1971 King finally got her first big break, with a large-scale, site-specific, public sculpture in Canberra. Reaction was polarised and the critics were vocal - abstract sculpture was completely alien and puzzled them. Despite the outcry the tide was turning - modernist sculpture was finding acceptance and some recognition.
A life-long desire to work in bronze was realised in 1990, along with a new zest for life. The joie- de-vivre invested in King’s work is palpable. "When you have lived a long time, you cherish what you have had and you celebrate life" - she says