Sidney E. King Bio Sketch

In 1954 the National Park Service commissioned Sidney E. King to make a series of paintings of early Jamestown houses and buildings. King traveled to England where he studied small cottages and dwelling places of the seventeenth century. By 1956 King had enlisted a group of architects, archaeologists, and historians to help him authenticate his sketches.

King himself spent longs hours in libraries and archives studying obscure facets of Jamestown history. His paintings always begin with sketches of the artifacts recovered from the seventeenth century building sites. With the material culture, he combines evidence from archival collections.

Accuracy of detail and variety of subject matter characterize his work. His visualization of early Virginia history, grounded in his meticulous research, has benefited generations of visitors to historic landmarks. He has made about 180 large historical paintings for park sites throughout the eastern United States. At age 92, he still lives and works on his rural farm in Caroline County, Virginia.