Chris KILLIP

BIOGRAPHY

Chris Killip (British, b. 1946 - 2020)

Born on the Isle of Man in 1946, Killip left school at age sixteen and trained to become a manager at a local hotel. In June 1964 he decided to pursue photography full time and became a beach photographer in order to earn enough money to move abroad. In October 1964 he was hired as an assistant to the leading London advertising photographer Adrian Flowers. Killip then worked as a freelance assistant for various photographers in London from 1966-69. In 1969, after seeing an exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he decided to return to photograph on the Isle of Man. Killip worked in his father's pub at night returning to London on occasion to print his work. On a return visit to the USA in 1971, Lee Witkin, the New York gallery owner, commissioned a limited edition portfolio of the Isle of Man images, paying for it in advance so that Killip could continue to photograph. In 1972 he received a commission from The Arts Council of Great Britain to photograph Huddersfield and Bury St Edmunds for the exhibition Two Views - Two Cities. In 1975, he moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a two year fellowship as the Northern Arts Photography Fellow. He was a founding member, exhibition curator and advisor of Side Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as well as its director, from 1977-9. Killip continued to live in Newcastle and photographed throughout the North East of England, and from 1980-85 made occasional cover portraits for The London Review of Books. In 1989 he was commissioned by Pirelli UK to photograph the workforce at their tyre factory in Burton-on-Trent. In 1989 he received the Henri Cartier Bresson Award and in 1991 was invited to be a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. In 1994 he was made a tenured professor and was department chair from 1994-98. He continues to live in the USA, teaching at Harvard University.

His work is featured in the permanent collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Tate Britain, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.