painter and gold-miner, was apparently working as a miner on the Avoca goldfields near Bendigo, Victoria when he painted the work by which he is known, The First Parliamentary Election Bendigo, 1855 (Bendigo Art Gallery). This is a lively and colourful naive representation of the local candidate Dr John Downes Owens and his supporters celebrating their success outside and on the upstairs balcony of the Criterion Hotel, Bendigo. King was still living in Avoca when he exhibited two oil paintings at the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition: Celebration of the Prince of Wales’s Wedding-day on the Avoca Cricket Ground and Pigs . The unsigned, rather crude J. Morris Sale Yard (w/c and gouache) was identified with the latter when offered for sale in 1985 (now National Library of Australia).
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
