THING

Locally people know this as BYT, The Big Yellow Thing, and according to my niece some of her fellow students refer to it as Archimedes’ Balls. It has an official title ‘Galway Yellow’ and was presented to the University by P.J. Carrol & Co. Ltd., along with the Arts Council. Since then it has been placed on Galway City Council’s protected structure list. While that might surprise many of those who pass by the sculpture every day, it’s worth remembering that, as a representative example of King’s early work and of ‘modern’ Irish art in the 1970s more generally, Galway Yellow has a value beyond the intrinsic merits of the piece itself.

Brian King was born in Dublin in 1942, he studied in the National college of Art and Design in Dublin , where he lectured for a number of years and, and then became the Head of the Department of Sculpture from 1984–2004.

He participated in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art from 1964 to 1978, won the Carroll’s Award 1965, And served as its President for the last ten years. In 1969 and 1983 he represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale, on the former occasion becoming the first Irish artist to win the major individual prize. His public commissions are typically large-scale metal sculptures in an abstract, minimalist style, based on simple geometric forms.

Solo exhibitions include Dawson Gallery, Dublin (1968,74,75); Ulster Museum , Belfast (1973); Project Arts Gallery, Dublin (1980); Taylor Galleries , Dublin (1979, 82,88,90) and the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (1982). He has participated in major group exhibitions across Ireland and Europe, and his work is held in public collections including The Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork; RTE; Bank of Ireland; Allied Irish Bank; University of Ulster and University College, Dublin, and Farmleigh House, Dublin.