Phillip King was a British sculptor and Royal Academician. He initially studied languages at Christ's College at the University of Cambridge before moving on to study sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art from 1957 until 1958 under Anthony Caro. King subsequently worked as an assistant to Henry Moore. In 1990, King was made a Royal Academician and Professor Emeritus at the Royal College of Art and was President of the Royal Academy of Art from 1999 to 2004. He was a trustee to Tate and the National Portrait Gallery and was awarded the CBE in 1974. King exhibited extensively and internationally and had a number of retrospectives, including at Whitechapel Gallery and the Hayward Gallery in London. More recently, in 2010, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center and in 2012 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge. His work is in several international collections, including Australia's Art Gallery of New South Wales; Milan's Galleria d'Arte Moderna; London's British Council; and Japan's Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.