Norman keep, maquette
Inge KING: artist
King made an extraordinary contribution to modern art in Australia across seventy years of practice, most particularly in the field of large-scale, non-figurative sculpture. In 1959 King learnt to weld steel, and consequently much of her work throughout the 1960s was constructed of flat sections of steel welded together to create three-dimensional forms.
Although small, Norman keep clearly shows her expressive use of welding in making her sculptures at this time. She did not aim to create elegant works with near-invisible joins. Rather she deliberately let the metal bead along the weld joints and on the surface and edges of the steel, bringing texture to the surface, almost like a painter. The production of maquettes and smaller-scale sculptures was essential to King’s way of working as they enabled her to test ideas or forms that could then be expanded, all the way to the monumental scale required for the works she envisaged for cityscapes.
Although small, Norman keep clearly shows her expressive use of welding in making her sculptures at this time. She did not aim to create elegant works with near-invisible joins. Rather she deliberately let the metal bead along the weld joints and on the surface and edges of the steel, bringing texture to the surface, almost like a painter. The production of maquettes and smaller-scale sculptures was essential to King’s way of working as they enabled her to test ideas or forms that could then be expanded, all the way to the monumental scale required for the works she envisaged for cityscapes.
Title
Norman keep, maquette
Artist/Maker and role
Inge KING: artist
Date
1963-1964
Medium
bronzed steel
Measurements
36.4 x 14.6 cm (diameter)
Credit line
Gift of the artist under the Commonwealth Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2015
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
2015/0075