When a young boy sees a photo of the decapitated head of notorious Brazilian bandit Lampião in a book, it becomes an obsession and inspires him to create incredible multifaceted artworks in a life time journey that takes him from Brazil, to England, Canada and the United States as he struggles to have his work recognised and accepted.
In this Goldmark film, shot mostly on location in his studio in Sussex, Ron King talks about his life and inspiration; the development of his work and the founding of Circle Press as an ongoing collaboration with other artists. The film highlights his continuing relationship with the USA which was underlined in 2002 with the purchase of the Circle Press' complete output and archives by the Paul Mellon Foundation at The Yale Center for British Art.
King also talks movingly in the film about the sudden death of his son, from cancer, aged only 15 and that of his second son from the same disease 30 years later and the profound effect the passing of his sons has had on his life and his work.
Featuring interviews with writer, art historian and critic Mel Gooding and artist, designer and filmmaker John Christie, this latest Goldmark film provides a sensitive and revealing insight into the life of this extraordinarily inventive and energetic man.

Ron King has had an artistic life that spans a multi faceted and inspiring 60 years. His iconographic work is marked by a distinctive, fresh and often pioneering approach. As an artist his work can’t be pinned down to by genre but it does have an approach that is hallmarked by a distinctively curious, questioning and energetic approach.
He picked up a scholarship at Chelsea for his painting and then several art awards when he emigrated to Canada, with his wife and sculptor Willow Legge in 1956. Here he worked as an art director in McLean Hunter publishing house. In 1960 Ron returned to the UK with his family to paint for his first one-man show in Toronto. In 1961 while teaching at Farnham School of Art he took up printmaking, which led to a contract in 1964 with the well known print publishers Editions Alecto. Unable to publish his first book ‘The Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales’ with them, he followed through the project himself and formed Circle Press.