Vale Michael (Mike) King-Prime who died recently from cancer in Lismore Base Hospital.

Mike’s wife Evelyn (Ev) tells the story of his life, which begins as a love story that spans continents, from the UK to the US and finally the Northern Rivers. With Mike’s artistic talent and Ev’s business and marketing know-how, Mike became a successful artist whose foundation of working in advertising and animation, eventually saw him catapult to success as a painter whose work was highly sought after in the United States and across the world.

Cancer

“Mike passed away from cancer a few weeks ago,” Ev said. “And he kept on smoking through it all. He said ‘I’m doomed’ and kept smoking up till the end.

“He was 78 when he was diagnosed and I guess he thought what’s to battle for? The kids are fine, my life has been fantastic, the only thing I leave behind is Ev.

“He did well for nearly four years after the diagnosis before he went downhill - so we had to put him in a home. He couldn’t dress himself and I couldn’t look after him properly.

“He was there for four months and got weaker and weaker. He did quite well considering he got four years out of his initial diagnosis.

“Together we had two kids – a boy and girl – they are not artistic and they weren’t impressed by Michael's career much – but he had a fantastic life.”

Name

“Mike’s grandfather was a miner in South America and the labourers used to call him the king of the mines but his real name was Prime so they just added King to Prime.

Love story

“I was brought up in Argentina with English and American parents and he was brought up there too with British parents.

“I didn’t meet Mike till I went to London and I met him at a party. He was very good looking and very rude and arrogant, covering up a lack of self esteem - and I thought he’s mine. I said to mum 'that’s the man I’m going to marry' and she said 'he’s a bum'.

“I didn’t see him again for a couple of years - he’d been on a ship as a mate going through the canals in the States. He came back with a massive beard and turned up at my brothers place and I thought 'it’s you under all that hair'.

“He invited me out one night and said I can’t pay, you’d better pay - I’m broke. I thought that’s a good start and the rest is history. My mother was determined I wasn’t going to get involved with this bum as she called him and she whisked me off to Spain to live and a year later Mike turned up on my doorstep again.

Meant to be together

“He lived with us in Spain for a couple of years then we went back to London and got married in 1965. I met him when I was 18 and he was six years older, but he was so cute.

“He was working in advertising then, but painting on the side. He hadn’t had any exhibitions at that stage. It was only when we came to Australia that he started painting seriously.

Coming to Australia

“We had a five month old daughter and were having lunch in London one day and he said to me it's cold and dismal here – where would you like to live – Australia or Canada? I said where’s Australia, I was totally ignorant. He said Australia is warm and I said obviously, Australia.

“When we arrived in Sydney we thought we’d won lotto and fell in love with the place.

“He went to Australia first in 1971 and got a job in advertising again. He was paid a massive salary, well beyond what he made in England.

Hanna Barbera

“Then he started working in animation, working as a background artist for Hanna Barbera.”

Some of the animated shows he worked on included Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones cartoons, The All New Popeye Hour, Pink Panther and Sons and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

“Mike went to art school when he was younger, but his hard yakka painting training came from working at Hanna Barbera. He worked in inks, watercolours and acrylics. he used to do one background after another – it was like a factory line,” Ev said.

“It taught him a lot – he might paint shops, prisons – anything.

Kombi van

“We bought a flat and business in Manly, then later sold it all, bought a Kombi van and came up here to the Northern Rivers in the early 1970s.

“The Aquarius Festival was on here at the time and we looked for somewhere to buy here. I went to Federal and we looked. You could buy a place at Wattagoes Beach for $14,000 and it was a little block with sandy soil, but I wanted to grow things.

Federal

“So, we looked at some acreage in Federal and I knew it was for me – 64 acres and we built our own house. they were beautiful days and we grew stuff , planted trees and reforested.

“Mike kept going down to Sydney to get work at Hanna Barbera because we needed the income, then he went to Los Angeles and the Phillipines to teach animation and he was away a lot.

Gallery

“One day I woke up and thought I want to open a gallery and I opened a gallery in Byron called the Cape Gallery and we had some marvellous exhibitions. Then Mike came home and I said he should put his work in there – and his work took off like wildfire.

“One day he went back to Los Angeles in Arizona and put a piece he’s painted while in Phoenix in a gallery and the owner called us at 2am and said he’d sold it and told him to come over.

Arizona and galleries

“So, we sold out house in Byron and took our son with us and went to the States to live in Arizona for nine years.

“Mike painted and I marketed his work. We were supplying six galleries at any one time. He was prolific. After that we went to California to live – we were away about 11 years.

“We bought a condo in Arizona and when I decided to market his work, I rang up a top gallery in the South West region and arranged a meeting.

“A friend and me rented a van and took two pieces of his work. We walked up into the gallery and the grumpy gallery owner had to come down to the car park to see them.

“We pulled out the paintings and they said these could sell. They sold a week later and he rand up and said ‘got any more?’. He paid us quickly, but some galleries didn’t pay and we had to hassle them.

“Then galleries across the States caught wind of him and wanted his work and we would fly there for opening night. Santa Fe was a huge gallery and he provided 20 pieces there and 14 pieces sold on opening night.

Heart attack

“Then I had a heart attack. It cost me $80,000 to get out of that alive. It was the worst thing that could have happened. They took all our savings and it diminished it all in the end and Mike said let’s go back to Australia.

“We had a lot of friends still here and couldn’t imagining living anywhere else."

Bangalow

We lived for a while in Bangalow and opened a gallery and sold his work there. People would come and say you’re back – they remembered him.

Then we came to live in Lismore, in Girard’s Hill. Then we sold that house and came to live in this flat near the hospital. It was good for me and in the long run it was good for him too.

Stroke

“It was about six years ago Mike had a stroke – that was before he got cancer. He always smoked and would have a paint brush in one hand and a ciggie in the other.

“He said he couldn’t live without both. He never drank, but he loved his fags and coffee.

Painting

“I didn’t know what started him painting but he was always on the cusp of graphic design and painting. He loved landscapes, seascapes, rainforests and the environment. he loved Arizona – all that lovely oxide monumental stuff. He loved doing it.

“He didn’t do plein air painting - his medium was liquid – water, acrylic – so he would take photos of landscapes and worked from them. We went to Monument Valley and Utah, Grand Canyon. He did ten big pieces of that.

“In his portfolio, there is a lot of landscape work.”

There’s one painting of the town of Bangalow that is still on the walls of a real estate agent there.

Abstract

“He always aspired to do abstract work – not pretty paintings.” Ev said ."His work before he died was very abstract. He loved messing around with pushing paint around, but there wasn’t a market for that.

Persistence

“I never painted. Two artists in one house? We’d kill each other. I helped him a lot. He would overwork something, take the freshness away and I would say leave it. Don’t boss me around he would say, but he respected my opinion – I’d seen enough art in my time.

“One thing he had was incredible persistence. He painted all day long and apart from playing golf, he didn’t do anything else.

“He loved jazz music and classical music and would listen while he painted.”

“When he died and my son cleaned his painting room, he said there was paint all over the walls.

Ev’s support and marketing

“The first thing I realised when he started painting was that I had the product – I knew he would sell. It wasn’t hard for me to market him.

“I don’t think he could have marketed himself, he was very humble and insecure. He never would have gone out and put his work in a gallery. It scares most artists to have to go and sell themselves to a gallery. I used to have a gallery and I know what it was like for them.

Lismore Art Club

Mike also shared his knowledge of painting with the local community and would give talks at the Lismore Art Club, sharing skills and techniques.

“He used to outrage all the old dears and say he would be going to check the time and he would go outside and have a cigarette.

“You shouldn’t smoke, you know they would say to him.

Lismore Art Club Mike demonstrates mixing colour washes at Lismore Art Club.

Our House

In Lismore, Mike’s work is on the walls of the Our House charity. Ev said Dr Chris Ingall was a good friend of theirs and insisted his work be on the walls there.

In Art Aspects Gallery in Lismore, you can also see some of Mike’s prints.

Ev’s son has some of Mike’s paintings, but she said all that’s left is the prints of the paintings.

If people are interested in buying Mike’s work, they can contact Art Aspects Gallery.