Elliott H. King Professor of Art History

Wilson Hall 3016
540-458-8857
kingeh@wlu.edu
Website

Prof. King teaches courses in 19th and 20th-century American and European art history. His research focuses on surrealism with an expertise in the art of Salvador Dalí, a subject in which he has specialized for over two decades. As an active independent curator, he has organized large-scale exhibitions of Dalí’s work in the United States and Japan, as well as the 2012 exhibit, Frida and Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting, the largest display ever mounted of Frida Kahlo and Diego’s Rivera’s combined work. He has also contributed to the accompanying catalogues for surrealism exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the National Gallery of Victoria, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Palazzo delle Arti de Napoli. Since 2016, he has been a founding board member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.

Education

Ph.D, Art History and Theory, 2010
University of Essex, Colchester, England
Dissertation: The Tragic Myth of the Two Dalís: Re-evaluating "late Dalí"

M.A. with Distinction in Dissertation, History of Art, 2001
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England
Course option: "Intellectual Revolution: Art and Its Contexts in France, 1958-1981"

B.A. summa cum laude, Art History (honors; Phi Beta Kappa [Int. 1998]), 1999    
University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

Selected Publications

Books and book-length exhibition catalogues

Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance, 1960–1980 (co-edited with Abigail Susik), Penn State University Press, University Park, 2022.

Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting (co-edited with Dot Tuer), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto / High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2012.

Dalí: The Late Work (co-edited with David A. Brenneman), Yale University Press, New Haven / High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2010.

Dalí, Surrealism and Cinema, Kamera Books, Herts (UK), 2007.

Select Articles and Chapters

“Introduction, Special Issue on Salvador Dalí,” The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 13:1 (2022): 1-8. Guest Editor of special Dalí issue

“Dalí e il divino,” in Laura Bartolomé, Lucia Moni, and Francesca Villanti (eds.), Io Dalí, Palazzo delle Arti di Napoli, Gangemi Editore SpA International 2018, 90–119

“‘The Spectator Makes the Picture’: Optical illusions and Viewer Experience in Dalí’s and Duchamp’s Stereoscopic Works,” En Garde! Journal of the Salvador Dalí Museum, Issue 3, spring/summer 2018

“Dalí y Warhol en Nueva York: ‘El cerebro de Alice Cooper’ como campo de batalla,” in José M. del Pino (ed.), El impacto de la metrópolis: La experiencia americana en Lorca, Dalí y Buñuel, Iberoamericana / Vervuert 2018, 221–242

“Surrealism and Counterculture,” in David Hopkins (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Dada and Surrealism, Wiley-Blackwell 2016, 416–430

“Ten Recipes for Immortality: A Study of Dalínian Science and Paranoiac Fictions,” in Gavin Parkinson (ed.), Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comics, Liverpool University Press 2015, 213–232

“Le divin Dalí,” in Jean-Hubert Martin, Montse Aguer, Jean-Michel Bouhours, and Thierry Dufrêne (eds.), Dalí, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2012, 266–267

Selected Curatorial Projects

Guest Curator "Magritte: Reflections of Another World, Paintings from the Van Parys Family," The Baker Museum/Artis-Naples, Naples, FL, 1 December 2019

Guest Curator, “DALÍ/HALSMAN,” Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Kitashiobara, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, 11 May–6 September 2020.

Consulting Curator, "Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting," High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), 16 February-12 May 2013.

Guest Curator, "Dalí: The Late Work," High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), 7 August 2010-9 January 2011