The son of a German born goldsmith, Paul King worked in lithography in Buffalo, before enrolling at the Buffalo Art Students League. In the 1890s he was a member of the Bohemian Sketch Club with Edward Dufner and Eugene Speicher. By 1900 King had moved to New York where he attended the Art Students League from 1901 to 1904, studying under Henry Siddons Mowbray. He supported himself through magazine and book illustration.
From 1905 to 1906 King was at Katwjk-an-Zee, Holland, training with Dutch artists Willy Sluiter, Evert Pieters and Bernard Bloomers. He also visited Paris and London before settling in Philadelphia where he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and where he lived until 1923. In 1907 the artist married Cornelia Bonnell and, from 1923, they made their home in Stony Brook, New York.
While establishing his reputation as a landscape and marine painter, King became a member of the Philadelphia Art Alliance and Art Club. He won a silver medal at the Panama-pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 and a prize from the Pennsylvania Academy in 1918. During World War I he worked in the camoflage branch of the United States Shipping Board. He served as acting president of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women before moving to New York in 1921. HIs most favorable critical response resulted from his winning the National Academy's 1st Altman Prize for his landscape Early Winter in 1923. He was a consistent participant in the Academy's annual and winter exhibitions, even when he was not living in New York. In fact, he was represented by at least one painting in almost every show at the Academy from 1902 until the year of his death.
In his later years, the artist turned towards portraiture. He traveled through the South in 1926, also visiting Nova Scotia that year. In 1929, King returned to Europe, touring France, Spain, England and Northern Africa. He continued painting until a few weeks before his death at his home.
