Wagga Wagga Art Gallery would like to acknowledge the passing of respected and much-loved Australian glass artist Dr Gerry King.

Gerry King was an art glass pioneer, author, master-craftsperson, lecturer and mentor.  The artist was revered for working with the processes of blown, cast & kiln-formed glass. His preoccupation with the impact of light and colour in his work through form and pattern which referenced the environment and more recently a warming planet, has been at the forefront of his artistic vision. Gerry King’s works may be found in major collections worldwide, including Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s National Art Glass Collection.

King last exhibited at the National Art Glass Gallery in 2022 with his brilliant exhibition titled Towards the Finishing Line: works of the last decade. This exhibition included thirty new works alongside pivotal formative works from the National Art Glass Collection. It celebrated King’s fifty years as an art glass practitioner and his place in the Australian art glass landscape as an academic, a maker and curator. It also provided an opportunity for audiences to scrutinize King’s creative longevity and concern for the human condition. King himself led this enquiry, posing the question ‘when should an artist stop making?’

“I cannot now dismiss the notion that one day I will make my last series, my last work. I peer towards a ‘Finishing Line’ not yet perceptible in the mists ahead. This realisation affords some discomfort for I have many series not yet completed, many not yet commenced and many not yet imagined”

Vale Gerry King
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
April 2024