King, Roy E. (1903-1986)

Sculptor, Painter, Civil Engineer

Born November 22, 1903 in Richmond, Virgina, the son of C. Carroll King and Blanche Williams King. Educated at the University of Richmond, class of 1926. Studied art at the Ohio School of Commercial Art, then simultaneously Art Student League of New York and the Beaux Art Institute of Design, New York City from 1925 to 1933 studying under Edward McCartan as well as Ulric Ellerhusen, Lee Lawrie, C. Paul Jennewein and many others. Additionally, was experimental designer at Mergenthaler Linotype Company of New York.

He was assistant to Ulric Ellerhusen, designing sculptor for Bertram Goodhue's Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and the University of Chicago Rockefeller Chapel, Chicago, Illinois and also on the Louisiana State Capitol, where Roy did much of the exterior design work. As assistant to C. Paul Jennewein he worked on figures and design for the Department of Justice Building, Washington, DC. With Joseph Kiselewski, Roy did the bronze details and panels of the George Rogers Clark Memorial in George Rogers Clark National Historical Park at Vincennes, Indiana. As assistant to Lee Lawrie, he designed figures for the Nebraska State Capitol, various state buildings in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the auditorium at Radio City Music Hall in New York as well as St. John the Devine Cathedral in New York City.

Roy did many portrait busts in bronze and other materials for commissions from patrons, including Lawrence L. Gillespie and Mrs. William Watts Sherman, Broadway actresses and many others. He also carved or modeled portraits of other artists such as Charles S. Marek and Antonio Blanco. Other commissions were for life size busts in carrara marble of Patti and John Chock in Hawaii and later portrait heads in terra-cotta of the Costin family including a bronze bust of the father, Tom Costin, and a carved marble bust of the mother, Rosemary Costin in 1960. In 1980 he painted portraits of Stan Colton’s greyhounds racing at Seabrook, New Hampshire track.

His art from the 1920’s up until he died in 1986 was influenced by the styles of the Beaux Art Institute and the Art Student League. He had many significant commissions from his first commission in 1927 to model the Lotus Fountain at the Los Angeles Public Library Children’s Court to a Vermont marble World War II War Memorial in Hilo, Hawaii in 1949 (one of two he did in Hawaii). Other significant commissions include a bust in marble of General Alexander Stuart Webb, Civil War hero and past President of the College of the City of New York in 1935, design, modeling and carving of 13 foot high figures for the Mess Hall at West Point Military Academy (1935), New York, carving in walnut an 8 foot panel for the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania Post Office in 1937, two 13 foot figures for buildings at the Worlds Fair in 1939, designed and executed a War Memorial to all Americans of Hawaii who died in World War II in Honolulu, Hawaii and 12 unique capitols in St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Honolulu, Hawaii, among others.

He became a member of the National Sculpture Society in 1933.

He exhibited his sculptures in many places including Knoedler Gallery in New York, Richmond Academy of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Radio City Music Hall, Honolulu Academy of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Orange Junior Museum, Orange, Texas, Beaumont Art Museum and several exhibits in the New England area. In 1960, a bust of his son Paul was a purchase prize for the Beaumont Art Museum.

Roy married New York ballerina Nora Puntin in 1935. They moved to Honolulu, Hawaii from New York City in 1938, where Roy established a studio for sculpture. Several commissions occurred, the first for a medical group building in 1938 and the later, two figures for the Schofield Post Office. In 1940 he won the grand prize by popular vote for his Horse and Rider, carved in Monkey Pod wood at the Honolulu Academy Exhibition. Probably one of his greatest creations in Hawaiian art was the carving of two Hawaiian gods, Ku and Hina, out of lava pillars, 3 foot by 3 foot by 10 foot, in the Men’s Department of McInerney’s Department Store, King Street, Honolulu.

Roy designed and modeled in collaboration with the architect, Vladimir Ossipoff the sculptural decoration over the main entrance of the now demolished Medical Group building located in Honolulu, on Punchbowl Street between Hotel and Beretania Streets. Architect Val Ossipoff's work includes the Outrigger Canoe Club just below Diamond Head, Hawaii in Waikiki for which Roy also carved the seal over the entrance for the opening of the new building in 1941.

In 1939 Roy King gained a commission from Charles William Dickey (1871-1942), the architect, to do the interior and exterior leaf decorations on the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building (renamed the Queen's Conference Center) for the then Queens Hospital. He was commissioned to do grilles and woodcarvings for Harold Vanderbilt’s and his mother’s beach house on Oahu. Roy carved an undersea Hawaiian design for the gate. The architect decided on a metal gate instead. Not used, it was on display for a showing of the Association of Honolulu Artists and later purchased for a private party.

Charles William Dickey, the same architect who hired Roy to do the artistic features on the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building in 1939, commissioned Roy to do another, this time, permanent War Memorial in marble for a park in Hilo, Hawaii.

In the early 1940’s, because of the war, he became a civil engineer for the Navy and except for a brief period later in the 1940’s, was a civil engineer for the government until he retired. He taught art for the University of Hawaii from 1942 to 1953 as part of their extension courses. He was also president of the Honolulu Academy of Artists in 1949. He taught art classes in Redondo Beach, California from 1957 to 1959.

As of March, 2010, Smithsonian American Art Museum Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture Database lists over 160 files of sculptures done by Roy E. King.

Roy died on August 29, 1986 in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

Information supplied by Paul and Gail King, son and daughter-in-law on March 17, 2010.

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