“Perch #12” is in a series of birds I have been painting and drawing since the 1960s. I don’t paint or draw one particular bird. I paint birds, their shapes. Pigeons have been important to me since I was a boy. They fascinate me. Their timing, the way they handle crowds on city streets always amazes me. They manage to get out of our way at the last moment.
November 27, 2024
Basil King was born in the UK in 1935 and immigrated to the USA at age twelve. He began studies at Black Mountain in 1951. After college and time in San Francisco, New York City, and Montana, he ultimately settled in New York City’s Lower East Side – and then Brooklyn. In 1985, following his first return to the UK, he began to write seriously and since has published both chapbooks and full length collections of poetry. His early work painting abstract expressionist works grew into his own approach to art employing fluid forms that combine abstraction, surrealism, and figuration. Now in his eighth decade, he lives in Brooklyn and paints and writes daily.