Maatstaf. Jaargang 30

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Martha King Basil King's Portraits

Basil King was born in London, England in 1937. At age 12 he was transplanted by his parents to Detroit, Michigan, which he left when he was 16 to attend Black Mountain College. Later, he moved to New York City and continued studying abstract expressionism, working occasionally as a studio assistant for Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and others. King has lived and worked in New York most of his life since. He speaks easily and clearly about his work: ‘Doing a painting is an act of creation. That act is its own first obligation and no other consideration comes first. I'm not thinking, does this accord with a theory? or what should this be like? before I've worked it through. But a portrait is quite different: the obligation then is not simply my own because I must deal with another person. I try to get behind them in a sense, not simply stare at them. I have even acted it out, imitated the way someone holds his mouth as a way to understand how he feels, to get inside. It seems to me a portrait is something that already exists, even if it shows shapes no one else has ever seen.

To make a portrait, then, is a conscious decision. I mean to be faithful to the familiar, the public image. Of course, the public image is there to be seen by anyone who looks; it's the popular image that's glamorized and manipulated.

Everyone isn't wonderful, graceful, loving, and kind!

I've been interested in portraits and in their special requirements ever since I did portraits of twelve famous psychologists - Freud to Lang - for a calendar Mulch Press published in 1977. Because the portrait is so limited, by its own nature, it demands a vocabulary of shapes. The shape is paramount. If one's vocabulary is limited, the portrait is very predictable and boring. So I look for shapes. Sometimes I find shapes that I use otherwise, in my paintings, shapes I already have, in a sense, and sometimes I find a shape I've never used before, and it eventually translates its way back into my other work, the paintings.

My shapes look simple because I work hard to make them clear; in some way that's related to the techniques of a cartoonist, but I believe our essential intentions are different: the cartoonist needs speed. If the cartoon is going to work at all, it's a fleeting thing. The cartoonist has only a few seconds to convey his information. I want people to look much longer. (Think how long people have continued to look at Mona Lisa. That Buddha smile seduces you into a meditation of your own!) Cartoonists - and the best of them are wonderful artists - use their facility, their drawing skill to give quite simple directions. My directions are much more complicated but I do use simplicity to point out what I think is worth thinking about. I've made many judgments about the person and the shapes by the time a portrait is finished. I've chosen what's important to point out and I have, I believe, allowed the shape and the personality room to play.

The portrait is, finally, a very sociable thing to do. Collaboration means a surrender of one's

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Vladimir Nabokov

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Ralph Ellison

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Truman Capote

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Nancy Hayfield

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Elizabeth Hardwick

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Czeslaw Milosz

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Isaac Bashevis Singer

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Ann Beattie

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own autonomy, temporarily at least. I hope what results is a digestible, social act.’

Since he was a student at Black Mountain, King has been involved with writers, both as reader, friend, and artist. His drawings and photographs have appeared in a number of literary magazines and books of poetry. In 1970, with David Glotzer and Harry Lewis as co-editors, he founded Mulch magazine, which published poetry, art criticism, history, anthropology, fiction, and art for five years. King's works are in the permanent collections of museums in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Lawrence, Kansas; Springfield, Connecticut; and in the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library. His most recent exhibition, a showing of ‘Paul & Joan’, was sponsored by the Poetry Project of St. Mark's Church, New York City, in the spring of 1980 - an appropriate recognition of his long relationship with writers.

Born in London, England, 5/30/35; Naturalized American citizen, 1956
Married in San Francisco, 3/7/58 to Martha Davis Two daughters-Mallory Lambert (2/2/63) and Hetty Malke (7/10/64)

Education

Public and private schools in England until 1950 Cass Technical High School, Detroit, Michigan, 1950-52
Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1952-56
(Studied painting with Esteban Vicente, Jack Tworkov, Franz Kline; history and literature with Charles Olson; writing with Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley; history and music with Stefan Wolpe; pottery with Peter Voulkos)

Teaching Experience

New York University, School of Continuing Education - Instructor, 1968-72
Fordham University, Evening College, Lincoln Center - Instructor, 1970-72
Thomas Jefferson College, Grand Valley State Colleges, Allendale, Michigan - Tutor and Painterin-Residence, 1972-74
Thomas Jefferson College - Field Study Supervisor in New York, 1975-78
College of New Rochelle, D.C. 37 Campus, New York - Instructor, 1977-79
Brooklyn Museum, Community Education Department - Instructor, 1978-79, 1981 - present

Exhibitions and Publications of Paintings, Drawings, Photographs

1960	Stuttman Gallery, nyc-paintings, group show Cover drawings, Yugen #4, Yugen #5 Cover drawing, Watermelons, Ron Loewinsohn (Totem Press, nyc)
1961	8 drawings with critique by Fielding Dawson, Kulture #1 (Marc Schlieffer, nyc)
1962	Cover drawing, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note, LeRoi Jones (Totem/Corinth Press, nyc)
1963	Balin-Traube Gallery, nyc - paintings, group show
1964	Dorsky Gallery, nyc - paintings, group show The American Gallery, nyc - drawings, group show
1965	A.M. Sachs Gallery, nyc - paintings, group show Drawings and cover, Transitions, Steve Jonas (Golliard Press)
1966	Hartford Atheneaum Museum, Hartford, Connecticut - drawings, group show Jansen Graphics Gallery, nyc - drawings, group show Zabriskie Gallery, nyc - paper sculptures, group show Great Jones Street Gallery, nyc - paintings, group show
1967	‘Origins & Cycles’ four-person show, Loeb Student Center, New York University, nyc - paintings
1968	Long Island University, Brooklyn Center - paintings, group show
1969	Drawings and cover, The Crab Cantos, Harry Lewis (For Now with St. Adrian Company, New York) Cover drawing, The Sea Around Us, Ron Loewinsohn (Black Sparrow Press) Two-person show, Star/Turtle Gallery, nyc - paintings, drawings. Spring! - six drawings in the portfolio (Friendly Local Press, nyc)
1970	‘Algate Narcissus’ - solo exhibition, Judson Memorial Church, New York City - 34-foot mural, drawings Cover drawing, Meat Air, Ron Loewinsohn (Harcourt, Brace & World) Star/Turtle Gallery, nyc - paintings, group show
1971	‘Retrospective for a Critic’ - Kansas University Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas - group show (works in the Gene Swenson Memorial

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	Collection)
1972	Drawings, book design, cover - Piere Vidal, as translated by Paul Blackburn (Mulch Press, Amherst) Drawings and front cover, - Mulch #1 Drawings and back cover - Mulch #2 Drawings, book design, and cover, Onion, Paul Pines (Mulch Press, nyc)
1973	Solo show - Grand Rapids Museum of Art, Grand Rapids, Michigan - paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures Drawings - Mulch #4
1974	Solo show - Kansas University Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas - drawings and sculptures Drawings, book design - Visions of the Great Rememberer, Allen Ginsberg (Mulch Press, Amherst)
1975	‘Self Portrait Invitational’ - group show, Prince Street Gallery, nyc Drawings - Mulch #5
1976	Front cover, drawings - Mulch #8/9 Photographs and book design - Home Cooking, Harry Lewis (Mulch Press, Amherst) 12 portrait drawings - The Mulch Psychology Calendar (Mulch Press, Amherst)
1977	Solo show - Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, New York - paintings Springfield Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts - paintings, group show
1978	Solo show ‘Winter Trees’ - 50 Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn, ny - paintings Solo show ‘The ha in Prospect Park’ - 50 Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn, ny - paintings and 100 drawings Cover painting, drawings - Weather, Martha King (New Rivers Press) New York Antiquarian Book Fair - exhibit of portrait of Sigmund Freud from The Mulch Psychology Calendar
1979	Cover and drawings - Lorca/Blackburn, translations of Lorca by Paul Blackburn (Momo's Press, San Francisco) Solo show - ‘Brides of Algate’ The Fifth Street Gallery, nyc - paintings
1981	‘Paul & Joan’ - painting and graphics, The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, nyc

Editorial Activities

In 1972, with David Glotzer and Harry Lewis as my partners, I began the magazine Mulch. In 1972, as Mulch Press, we published our first book. Nine books of poetry and prose and eight issues of the magazine were published in all, with the help of generous grants from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (4 supporting grants) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1 grants for book publications).
With the single exception of Mulch #7, guest-edited by the poet Paul Metcalf, all books and magazine issues were the result of a joint editorial process that involved my ideas as a guiding force. A list of articles, either written by me or specially acquired and edited for the magazine by me, follows.
King, Basil. ‘George Jackson.’ Mulch i:2 (# 2)
King, Basil. ‘Edward Hopper, 1882-1967.’ Mulch i:2 (#2)
King, Basil. deChirico by deChirico.’ Mulch ii:1 (#3)
King, Basil. ‘Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944.’ Mulch ii:1 (#3)
Graham, John D. ‘Autoportrait.’ Edited by Basil and Martha King. Mulch ii:1 (#3)
Graham, John D. ‘Art.’ Edited by Basil and Martha King. Mulch ii:1 (#3)
Miller, Robert Peter. ‘Some Thoughts on Hans Hofmann.’ Mulch iii:2 (# 6)
Hofmann, Hans. ‘Introduction to The Painter's Primer.’ Translated by Peggy Huck. Mulch iii:2 (#6)
Herrera, Hayden. ‘We were the cafetaria people.’ (deKooning, Graham, and their circle in the 1930's). Mulch iv:1 (#8/9)
Swenson, G.R. ‘The Need for an American Criticism.’ (The introduction to ‘James Rosenquist: The Figure a Man Makes.’ Unpublished.) Mulch iv:1 (#8/9)

Permanent collections

Works are in the permanent collections of: Yale University, Wadsworth Atheneum, Mr. & Mrs. Morton Hornick, Grand Valley State Colleges, University of Kansas Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, Anthony Landreau, Mr. & Mrs. David Starobin, The Spencer Collection - New York Public Library

Biographical note

BASIL KING attended Black Mountain College in the 1950's, where he studied painting with Jack Tworkov, Joe Fiore, and Franz Kline, and history and literature with Charles Olson and Robert Duncan. He has taught at Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, and the Brooklyn Museum's Community Education Program, and he served two years as painter-in-residence at Thomas Jefferson College, an experimental division of Grand Valley State College, Michigan.
In 1971, with two poets as partners, he began the magazine Mulch, which published poetry, photographs, drawings, art and literary criticism, articles on history, anthropology, and sociology, and new

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fiction. Its outgrowth, Mulch Press, published nine books of poetry and fiction. Mulch Press received two grants from the National Arts Endowment and Mulch magazine received four supporting grants from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines. Mulch disbanded in 1976.
For almost twenty years, King has been collaborating with poet friends, producing covers and drawings for their publications. His work stretches from the cover of Yugen #6 (LeRoi Jones, 1961) to drawings for Lorca/Blackburn (Momo's Press, 1979).
King's paintings, drawings, and sculptures have been exhibited most recently in a series of shows at bis Brooklyn waterfront studio. Other solo exhibitions include the Fine Art Museum, University of Kansas (1974), Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, New York (1977), and the Fifth Street Gallery, New York (1979).