Linda King was recalled as a fine craftswoman and a helpful friend to artists, after she perished in a fire at her framing store and gallery on Aviation Boulevard. She was 68.
Authorities continued to investigate the fire, which broke out about 7:30 p.m. Friday, sending flames and smoke out of the windows of a section of King’s Gallery on Aviation near Prospect Avenue.
Firefighters knocked down the fire and rescued King, who lived in a small apartment within the building.
She was unconscious and in full cardiac arrest when firefighters found her inside the building, not far from the locked front door. They got her outside the building and resuscitated her, restoring a pulse. She was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance and then was moved to the Southern California Regional Burn Center at the USC Medical Center.
King suffered burns over 75 percent of her body, according to initial reports at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. She was pronounced dead 4:48 a.m. Saturday at the burn center, and an autopsy was to be scheduled.
“She was always so helpful to artists, always helping us sell our work. It didn’t matter when you stopped by, she would always drop everything and ask how you were, and how your friends were,” said Hermosa painter and photographer Robi Hutas, whose work often hung in the gallery.
“She was very gentle, very friendly,” he said.
“She was kind of a dreamer,” added fellow artist Wilfred Sarr. “She was probably pretty artistic. She could have been a painter, I think. She did a nice framing job, she was pretty inventive. She was very good at her craft.”
Well known artists whose work once hung in the gallery include Kent Butler, whose paintings include tranquil landscapes and reverential treatment of western American themes, and Kenneth Dale-Draper, who was especially known for seascapes, said Hutas and Sarr.
“It was a shock hearing this news,” Butler said of King’s passing. “I had all my artwork framed At King’s Gallery in the ‘70s, and I also showed my work in the gallery.”
Hutas last saw King about two weeks ago.
“She looked frail. She couldn’t have been more than 75, 80 pounds. I said Linda, you look so skinny, are you all right? And she said oh Robi, I lost my dog,” Hutas recalled.
When visitors rang the gallery doorbell, Hutas said, the large, friendly dog used to answer the door first, followed by King.
Hutas reflected that the absence of a dog might have deprived King of an early warning when the fire broke out.
King worked as a flight attendant for an airline decades ago, when her father and mother, Doug and Wilma King, owned the gallery, Sarr said. Linda King kept the business going after her parents passed away.
The gallery building was decidedly cluttered, Hutas said.
“There was stuff everywhere – frames, paper, notes, God knows what,” Hutas said. “I used to tell her Linda, how do you find anything in here?” ER
