Phillip King is one of the most innovative and highly regarded sculptors at work in Britain today. Originally working in fibreglass, he has gone on to work on large- and small-scale metal sculpture, often coloured, combining different materials--fibreglass, plastic, steel, slate, wood and latterly bronze.

King's earliest works of sculpture were produced while he was still an undergraduate at Cambridge. At St Martin's School of Art, where he studied under Anthony Caro from 1957 to 1958, he began making clay and plaster sculpture of a Brutalist-Surrealist type. From 1958 to 1959 he worked as an assistant to Henry Moore and in summer 1959 travelled to Greece on a Boise Scholarship. His first one-man show was in 1964 at the Rowan Gallery (where he has continued to exhibit), and in 1968 he represented Britain with Bridget Riley at the Venice Biennale. He established his studio near Dunstable in 1969 and in the same year spent three months in Japan making a major piece, Sky, for the Symposium of Sculptors organised for Expo 70. In 1981 he had a one-man show at the Hayward Gallery in London. In this new publication, the first major retrospective work on the artist, Tim Hilton offers a careful assessment of Phillip King's career as a sculptor. The illustrated catalogue section gives details of all major works, and the volume includes large-format reproductions in both black-and-white and colour of many of the most exciting pieces.