Marion King was born in 1897 in Ireland. She was an artist most widely known for her innovative children's cartoons and left her mark on her artistic illustrations and glass paintings.^[1]

Early life

Marion King was born in the town of Trim in County Meath, Ireland, into a family of eleven children. Her father, Thomas King, worked as a Customs and Excise officer, which led him to move to Trim in the late 19th century.^[2] Marion King spent considerable time in Leeds during her youth, later attending Leeds College of Arts.^[3]

Career

King returned to Ireland in 1922 where she began selling her art.^[2] She created most of her work from her home in Dublin where she was able to pursue her ambitions of becoming an artist making a steady income through commercial art.^[2] King is considered a pioneer of glass painting by critics, which drew attention to her from larger artistic circles in New York and Paris.^[2] Rumors of her have also spread about writing a book where she put into words her new methods.^[2] Several of her glass paintings were also shown in the Angus Gallery, St Stephen's Green, Dublin in 1934.^[4]

By the 1940s and 1950s, King was a recognised artistic individual making her most predominant work in children's books which she also presented on the Radio.^[1]

Later life and death

Marion King died on 13 July 1963, aged 66.^[1]

In addition to her work as an artist and illustrator, she was only a television broadcaster. In her later years, she created and illustrated numerous children's books. King was a broadcaster and presenter in the 1940s and 1950s. One of her most successful television programmes was "Art Adventures"^[5] with a Pinocchio-style doll, Cushsahaboo, with a feather in his hat, and Sean Bunny, a rabbit who wore dungarees.

Though King had a speech impediment, it did not stop her from broadcasting for her final years. In the last 10 years of her life, she wrote her cartoon and story strip, ‘Sean Bunny’, in the Irish Times. Initially, the cartoon appeared three times a week in the paper, after it appeared daily due to the popularity it gained.

Work

She created and presented RTÉ's radio show Drawing and Painting with Marion King after she suggested the radio programme for RTÉ in 1943 for children interested in learning to draw. Due to the show's popularity it went on for a consecutive twenty years up until her death. One of the characters she created was Sean Bunny. He was a rabbit mascot that gained popularity and got his own newspaper cartoon strip in The Irish Times.^[1] RTÉ has not done any reruns of the show on radio or TV.

She was also a painter during her life. She had a unique technique of painting on glass which created a surprise amongst artists. In 2023, three of her paintings sold for a combined total of €1,860 in Adams and Sons auction house in Dublin. Her paintings have been exhibited in several locations around Dublin during her lifetime (1934 Angus Gallery, St Stephen's Green; 1937 Academy of Christian Art, 42 Upper Mount Street Dublin). Some of her paintings were displayed in the Salon de Artists Francais in Paris.^[6] She received her art education in the Leeds college of art Along with her paintings she also wrote popular children's books. She wrote several books, which included “GUG”, “BABA”, “BROIGIN”, “TAIMIN”, “MAC SPUIN” and “THE ADVENTURES OF SEAN BUNNY”. This is the same Sean Bunny as in ‘Art Adventures’ and ‘The Adventures of Seán Bunny’, King also wrote a book called “PEIGIN”.

References