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Washington Post, DC
July 10 2004
Sculptor and Art Teacher Elvine King Dies at 83
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page B05
Elvine R. King, 83, a daring minimalist sculptor and inspiring art
teacher who went professionally by the name V.V. Rankine, died June
22 of a heart attack at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney. She had
lived in the District for more than 50 years before moving two years
ago to Arbor Place, an assisted living facility in Rockville.
Trained as a painter, Mrs. King turned to sculpture in the early
1950s, working in abstract and minimalist forms until the 1990s. In
1982, Washington Post critic Jo Ann Lewis described her as "a
Washington artist who has not quite had her due in this city."
If she never quite received the acclaim many thought she deserved,
she nevertheless had a long and solid career, regularly showing her
work at the country's leading galleries of modern art, including the
Betty Parsons Gallery in New York and the Jefferson Place and Barbara
Fiedler galleries in Washington. Her work was also featured in
exhibitions at the Corcoran Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of
Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
She also had a distinguished teaching career, beginning with a
drawing class in a studio in an alley behind St. Matthew's Catholic
Church in the District. From 1967 to 1970, she taught at the Madeira
School in McLean before moving to New York, where she taught at
Hunter College. After returning to Washington in 1973, she was on the
faculty at the University of Maryland until the late 1980s.
"She was such an enthusiastic, gifted, extraordinarily subtle
teacher," said Anne Truitt, an artist and writer who studied drawing
with Mrs. King. Her drawing technique was simple and classical, far
removed from the abstract nature of her sculpture.
Mrs. King was known for her charismatic personality and her gift for
friendship. For her entire life, she seemed to be at the center of a
remarkable network of people, inspiring both friendship and loyalty.
Her friends included such renowned art-world figures as Willem de
Kooning, Clement Greenberg, Robert Motherwell and Kenneth Noland. Her
sister-in-law from her first marriage was married to the
Armenian-born abstract expressionist painter Arshile Gorky.
Mrs. King lived in Washington three times -- in the early 1940s, from
1950 to 1970 and from 1973 to her death -- and was renowned for her
glittering dinner parties that brought the illuminati of the art
world together with leaders of the city's legal, diplomatic and
literary circles.
"It's hard to distill a life of warmth and color into a few
sentences," Truitt said. "If you had to reduce it to one term, she
was a catalytic agent. V.V. came down here and brought a worldly air
to this city."
She was born in Boston, where she was raised in part by her
grandmother, who was in her nineties and had known Ralph Waldo
Emerson, John Singer Sargent and the art collector Isabella Stewart
Gardner. Her mother's closest friend was Frances Perkins, the first
woman to hold a U.S. Cabinet position.
If not for an episode of parental disapproval, the young Elvine
Richard might have had a career in the theater rather than art. In
the late 1930s, Katharine Hepburn saw her at a skating rink in New
York and asked her to play the part of the younger sister in the
Broadway production of "The Philadelphia Story." Mrs. King's mother
and great-aunt refused to give their permission.
In the early 1940s, Mrs. King moved to Washington and worked for an
underground organization that promoted Israeli independence. While
here, she studied at the Phillips Collection's art school. From 1944
to 1946, she studied painting in New York with the artist Amedee
Ozenfant. In 1947 and '48, she was a student at Black Mountain
College in North Carolina, an experimental school that had many of
the leading artists as either students or teachers. She studied
painting with Josef Albers and de Kooning, and her classmates
included Noland, Robert Rauschenberg and the film director Arthur
Penn.
Mrs. King's marriages to John H. Magruder and Paul Scott Rankine
ended in divorce.
Her husband of 26 years, Rufus G. King, died in 1999.
Survivors include a son from her first marriage, John H. Magruder Jr.
of Dover, Mass.; a son from her second marriage, David S. Rankine of
Reno, Nev.; a stepson, Rufus G. King III of Washington, chief judge
of the D.C. Superior Court; a stepdaughter, Sheridan King Peyton of
Three Rivers, Calif.; a brother; and four grandchildren.
July 10 2004
Sculptor and Art Teacher Elvine King Dies at 83
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page B05
Elvine R. King, 83, a daring minimalist sculptor and inspiring art
teacher who went professionally by the name V.V. Rankine, died June
22 of a heart attack at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney. She had
lived in the District for more than 50 years before moving two years
ago to Arbor Place, an assisted living facility in Rockville.
Trained as a painter, Mrs. King turned to sculpture in the early
1950s, working in abstract and minimalist forms until the 1990s. In
1982, Washington Post critic Jo Ann Lewis described her as "a
Washington artist who has not quite had her due in this city."
If she never quite received the acclaim many thought she deserved,
she nevertheless had a long and solid career, regularly showing her
work at the country's leading galleries of modern art, including the
Betty Parsons Gallery in New York and the Jefferson Place and Barbara
Fiedler galleries in Washington. Her work was also featured in
exhibitions at the Corcoran Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of
Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
She also had a distinguished teaching career, beginning with a
drawing class in a studio in an alley behind St. Matthew's Catholic
Church in the District. From 1967 to 1970, she taught at the Madeira
School in McLean before moving to New York, where she taught at
Hunter College. After returning to Washington in 1973, she was on the
faculty at the University of Maryland until the late 1980s.
"She was such an enthusiastic, gifted, extraordinarily subtle
teacher," said Anne Truitt, an artist and writer who studied drawing
with Mrs. King. Her drawing technique was simple and classical, far
removed from the abstract nature of her sculpture.
Mrs. King was known for her charismatic personality and her gift for
friendship. For her entire life, she seemed to be at the center of a
remarkable network of people, inspiring both friendship and loyalty.
Her friends included such renowned art-world figures as Willem de
Kooning, Clement Greenberg, Robert Motherwell and Kenneth Noland. Her
sister-in-law from her first marriage was married to the
Armenian-born abstract expressionist painter Arshile Gorky.
Mrs. King lived in Washington three times -- in the early 1940s, from
1950 to 1970 and from 1973 to her death -- and was renowned for her
glittering dinner parties that brought the illuminati of the art
world together with leaders of the city's legal, diplomatic and
literary circles.
"It's hard to distill a life of warmth and color into a few
sentences," Truitt said. "If you had to reduce it to one term, she
was a catalytic agent. V.V. came down here and brought a worldly air
to this city."
She was born in Boston, where she was raised in part by her
grandmother, who was in her nineties and had known Ralph Waldo
Emerson, John Singer Sargent and the art collector Isabella Stewart
Gardner. Her mother's closest friend was Frances Perkins, the first
woman to hold a U.S. Cabinet position.
If not for an episode of parental disapproval, the young Elvine
Richard might have had a career in the theater rather than art. In
the late 1930s, Katharine Hepburn saw her at a skating rink in New
York and asked her to play the part of the younger sister in the
Broadway production of "The Philadelphia Story." Mrs. King's mother
and great-aunt refused to give their permission.
In the early 1940s, Mrs. King moved to Washington and worked for an
underground organization that promoted Israeli independence. While
here, she studied at the Phillips Collection's art school. From 1944
to 1946, she studied painting in New York with the artist Amedee
Ozenfant. In 1947 and '48, she was a student at Black Mountain
College in North Carolina, an experimental school that had many of
the leading artists as either students or teachers. She studied
painting with Josef Albers and de Kooning, and her classmates
included Noland, Robert Rauschenberg and the film director Arthur
Penn.
Mrs. King's marriages to John H. Magruder and Paul Scott Rankine
ended in divorce.
Her husband of 26 years, Rufus G. King, died in 1999.
Survivors include a son from her first marriage, John H. Magruder Jr.
of Dover, Mass.; a son from her second marriage, David S. Rankine of
Reno, Nev.; a stepson, Rufus G. King III of Washington, chief judge
of the D.C. Superior Court; a stepdaughter, Sheridan King Peyton of
Three Rivers, Calif.; a brother; and four grandchildren.