Chris Killip

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Chris Killip (Christopher David Killip) was born on 11 July 1946 in Douglas, Isle of Man. He is a Manx photographer who currently works at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Killip moved to London in 1964 and worked as an assistant to the advertising photographer Adrian Flowers. He soon went freelance, but in 1969 stopped his commercial work to concentrate on the photography that he wanted to do. In 1970 he moved back to the Isle of Man, photographing it extensively. Two years later he was commissioned to photograph Bury St Edmunds and Huddersfield, and in 1975 he won a two-year fellowship from Northern Arts to photograph the northeast of England; Creative Camera devoted its entire May issue to this work

Killip is well known for his gritty black and white images of people and places suffering from Thatcherism. During the early 1970s he became the founder, exhibition curator, and advisor at the Side Gallery, Newcastle, and worked as its director from 1977-79. In 1988, he photographed in northeast England to produce the body of work published in book form as In Flagrante. These black and white images, mostly made on 4×5 film, are now recognised as among the most important visual records of living in 1980s Britain. Gerry Badger describes the photographs as "taken from a point of view that opposed everything [Thatcher] stood for", and the book as "about community", "a dark, pessimistic journey".^[1]

The book In Flagrante was well received on its publication in 1988, but Killip's kind of black and white documentation of the underclass was going out of fashion quickly in Britain, as photographers used color to show consumerism and for consciously and explicitly artistic purposes.^[2]

In 1988 Killip was approached by Pirelli U.K. which thought that he might photograph its tire factory in Burton; agreement on this was reached in April the next year, whereupon Killip started work. Attempting to use available light in a darkened factory in which work was done on a black product, he was at first unsuccessful, but in June he switched to flash and a large-format camera and photographed for three more months. The resulting work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) in September; it was published in book form only in 1997.^[3]

Killip is the recipient of numerous awards, including the second Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (for In Flagrante). He has exhibited all over the world, written extensively, appeared on radio and television, and has been active in curating many memorable shows.

[edit] Exhibitions by Killip

[edit] Solo exhibitions

• "Seacoal", Side Gallery (Newcastle) and subsequent tour, 1984^[4]
• "Another Country", Serpentine Gallery (London). Photographs of northeast England by Killip and Graham Smith, 1985^[4]
• Art Institute of Chicago, 1986^[4]
• "In Flagrante", Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and subsequent tour of Europe, 1988^[4]
• "Working at Pirelli", Victoria and Albert Museum (London), 1990^[4]
• "Chris Killip Retrospective", Palais de Tokyo (Paris), 1991^[4]
• "The Last Art Show", Jarrow Bede Gallery (Jarrow), 1996. Photographs of Jarrow.^[4]
• "Chris Killip Photographs 1971-96", Manx Museum (Douglas) 1997^[4]
• "Chris Killip: Sixty Photographs", Old Post Office (Berlin), 2000^[4]

[edit] Selected joint exhibitions

• "No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1968–1987", Hayward Gallery (London), Ujazdów Castle (Warsaw), Tullie House (Carlisle) and Aberystwyth Arts Centre (Aberystwyth)^[5]

[edit] Major publications by Killip

• "Chris Killip Photographs 1975–1976 in the North East". Creative Camera, May 1977.
• The Isle of Man. New York: Witkin Gallery, 1973. Portfolio.
• The Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx. London: Arts Council, 1980. ISBN 0-7287-0187-1 (hardback); ISBN 0-7287-0186-3 (paperback). With text by John Berger.
• In Flagrante. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988. ISBN 0436233568. Text by John Berger and Sylvia Grant.
  • Vague à l'âme. Paris: Nathan, 1988. (French)
• Chris Killip 55. London: Phaidon, 2001. ISBN 0-7148-4028-9. Text by Gerry Badger.
• Pirelli Work. Göttingen: Steidl, 2007. ISBN 3-86521-317-0.

[edit] Other books with work by Killip

• Mellor, David Alan. No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the Arts Council Collection and the British Council Collection. London: Hayward, 2007. ISBN 9781853322655

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, vol. 2 (London: Phaidon, 2006; ISBN 0-7148-4433-0), 299.
2. ^ Clive Dilnot, "Chris Killip's Portraits of the Pirelli Workforce", Pirelli Work, pp. 65–85.
3. ^ The book: Pirelli Work. Account of the photography: Killip, "What Happened", Pirelli Work, pp. 62–63.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Chronology in Chris Killip 55, pp. 126–27.
5. ^ "Exhibition: No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1968–1987", British Council. Accessed 22 February 2008.

[edit] External links

• Killip at Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
• ULAN entry for Killip
• Killip's photographs in the [British] Government Art Collection, Department of Culture, Media and Sport
• Pirelli Work, publisher's page.