Australian sculptor Inge King died in Melbourne on 24th April aged 100. Inge King (née Ingeborg Viktoria Neufeld) was born in Berlin in 1915 into a well off Jewish family. She was 17 when Hitler came to power in 1933.  She remained in Germany through the thirties where she first started studying art before fleeing to England in 1939 where she continued studying in London and then Glasgow.

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After the war she lived for a while at the  Abbey Art Centre near London where she meet a number of Australian artists including Robert Klippel, James Gleeson, Oliffe Richmond, Noel Counihan and art historian Bernard Smith. She also meet and later married Australian printmaker Grahame King before moving to Melbourne in 1951.

Inge King had already exhibited in London and New York by the time she arrived in Melbourne. She was a founding member of the Centre Five group of sculptors, who, during the 1960s sought to push contemporary sculpture into the public domain by working with ­architects to incorporate public art in and around buildings.

King’s legacy is in the large number of major pieces, particularly in Melbourne,  that we pass and admire every day. From ‘Forward Surge’ at the Melbourne Arts Centre, ‘Sun Ribbon’ at the University of Melbourne, ‘Red Rings’ part of the Eastlink collection to ‘Rings of Saturn’ in  the grounds of the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Inge King Constellation – 2014 Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria  http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/inge-king/