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L. Brent Kington: Mythic Metalsmith

From April 18, 2010 to September 6, 2010, the Illinois State Museum will present L. Brent Kington: Mythic Metalsmith, a retrospective exhibition spanning 50 years of metal work by a southern Illinois artist who has had a profound impact on the worlds of metalsmithing and blacksmithing.  L. Brent Kington, recognized as pioneering the resurgence of blacksmithing as an American art form, is one of thirty-nine people in the United States to receive the American Craft Council’s “Gold Medal,” the Council’s highest award to individual artists.

The exhibition features sculpture borrowed from private and museum collections and includes cast silver and bronze toys from the early 1960s. Pivotal works of forged iron and steel show how Kington transitioned into blacksmithing, with a series of whimsical forged iron weathervanes and the brilliant Icarus series. These works led to his most recent abstract sculptures, that reference crosiers, spires, and crescents.

In 1962, after receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, Kington went to Carbondale to head the Metals Program at Southern Illinois University’s Art Department. Kington’s passion for developing the Metals Program at SIUC led to the establishment of the one and only available Masters of Fine Arts degree in Blacksmithing offered today in the United States.

Kington learned blacksmithing from the Deal brothers in Murphysboro, Illinois, one of whom was trained at Tuskegee University, and the other, an elderly, retired blacksmith. After years of honing his skills, he studied and added arc welding to his techniques and opened a blacksmith shop at his home. In 1969, he stopped working in small scale precious metals and committed to work in ferrous metals and creating larger work as a blacksmith.

During Kington’s thirty-five years at SIUC, he served as Chairperson at the School of Art and Design for ten years before retiring in 1997. He has participated in over 370 exhibitions, with more than twenty-two solo shows. He continues his work from his home in Makanda, Illinois.

There is an on-line learning guide to the Kington exhibition at: www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/brentkington/.

The exhibition catalog is available for purchase in the Museum Store or on line: https://www.museum.state.il.us/publications/catalog_by_categories/32/0.

Major support for this exhibition has been provided by the Illinois Arts Council through the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Initiative.

For more information, contact Robert Sill, Illinois State Museum, at rsill@museum.state.il.us or (217) 524-5744.

The Illinois State Museum is located at 502 S. Spring Street (the corner of Spring and Edwards Streets) in Springfield, and is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Parking is available nearby and the building is ADA accessible.

IMAGES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.