William Gunning King Biography

William Gunning King (1859-1940) was a painter, etcher and illustrator, especially of rural themes. He was the brother of the portrait, figure and landscape painter Edward R. King.

King studied at South Kensington and at the Royal Academy Schools. He exhibited regularly in London at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, New Gallery, New English Art Club and Society of British Artists, the latter society which elected James McNeill Whistler its President in 1886. He also exhibited at the Beaux-Arts Gallery, Royal Scottish Academy, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham, Manchester City Art Gallery and Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. His illustrated work appeared in Punch, The Graphic and the Windsor Magazine. In 1887, he was elected a member of the New English Art Club, the year before Whistler exhibited with the group.

He married Martha Rowell (1858-1934) in Fulham in 1883, and they made their home in Sussex, England.

In 1889 King was amongst the proposed guests to a dinner organised by W.C. Symons to congratulate Whistler on becoming an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Munich, a dinner which was to be held at the Criterion in Piccadilly on 1 May.

King died on 10th October 1940.