Chris Killip

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Manx photographer (1946–2020)

title: "Chris Killip" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["photography-in-ireland", "manx-photographers", "harvard-university-faculty", "photography-academics", "people-from-douglas,-isle-of-man", "20th-century-manx-people", "deaths-from-lung-cancer-in-massachusetts", "2020-deaths", "1946-births", "21st-century-manx-people"] description: "Manx photographer (1946–2020)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Killip" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Manx photographer (1946–2020) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox artist"]

FieldValue
nameChris Killip
birth_nameChristopher David Killip
birth_date
birth_placeDouglas, Isle of Man
death_date
notable_worksIn Flagrante (1988)
awards
website
::

| honorific_prefix = | name = Chris Killip | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Christopher David Killip | birth_date = | birth_place = Douglas, Isle of Man | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality = | education = | alma_mater = | known_for = | notable_works = In Flagrante (1988) | style = | home_town = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | parents = | father = | mother = | relatives = | family = | awards = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = | module = Christopher David Killip (11 July 1946 – 13 October 2020) was a Manx photographer who worked at Harvard University from 1991 to 2017, as a Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies. Killip is known for his black and white images of people and places especially of Tyneside during the 1980s.

Killip received the (for In Flagrante) and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. He exhibited all over the world, wrote extensively, appeared on radio and television, and curated many exhibitions.

Life and work

Killip was born in Douglas, Isle of Man; his parents ran the Highlander pub. He left school at 16 to work as a trainee hotel manager, while also working as a beach photographer. In 1964, aged 18, he moved to London where he worked as an assistant to the advertising photographer Adrian Flowers. He soon went freelance, along with periods working in his father's pub on the Isle of Man. In 1969, Killip ended his commercial work to concentrate on his own photography. The work from this time was eventually published by the Arts Council as Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx in 1980 with a text by John Berger. In 1972, he was commissioned by the Arts Council 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. He moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to pursue this work, to which Creative Camera devoted most of its May 1977 issue.

In 1977, Killip became a co-founder, exhibition curator, and advisor at the Side Gallery, Newcastle, and worked as its first director for 18 months. He produced a body of work from his photographs in the northeast of England, published in 1988 as In Flagrante with a text by Berger and Sylvia Grant. These black and white images, "portraits of Tyneside's working class communities amongst the signifiers of the region's declining industrial landscape", 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".

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 colour to show consumerism and for consciously and explicitly artistic purposes. In Flagrante was reproduced in February 2009 within one of Errata Editions' "Books on Books". In a review of this reproduction, Robert Ayers describes the original as "one of the greatest photography books ever published".

In 1988, Killip was commissioned by Pirelli UK to photograph its tyre 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 1989; it was published in book form by Ute Eskildsen/Steidl in 2007.

From 1992 until 2004, Killip photographed pilgrimages and other scenes in rural Ireland; the result was published in 2009 by Thames & Hudson as Here Comes Everybody.

In 1991, he moved to the USA, having been given a post at Harvard University as a visiting lecturer. He was made a tenured professor in 1994, and remained as a professor of visual and environmental studies until 2017.

Arbeit/Work was published by Steidl in 2012 to accompany Killip's retrospective exhibition at Museum Folkwang, Essen.

Personal life

Killip had a son, Matthew, with the photographer Markéta Luskačová.

After his appointment to a post at Harvard, Killip lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the rest of his life, in 2000 marrying Mary Halpenny, who also worked at Harvard.

Killip died on 13 October 2020 from lung cancer. He was 74.

Exhibitions

Solo

Group

Publications

Books of works by Killip

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Photobooks_by_Chris_Killip.jpg" caption="Photobooks by Killip (flanked by irrelevant Pelicans)"] ::

  • The Isle of Man. New York: Witkin Gallery, 1973. Portfolio.
  • Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980. (Distributed by Zwemmer.) (hardback); (paperback). Under the name Christopher Killip. With text by Killip and John Berger and quotations from various older sources.
  • In Flagrante. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988. (hardback); (paperback). Text by John Berger and Sylvia Grant.
    • Vague à l'âme. Paris: Nathan, 1988. Text in French.
  • Chris Killip 55. London: Phaidon, 2001. . Text by Gerry Badger.
  • Pirelli Work. Göttingen: Steidl, 2007. .
  • Chris Killip: In Flagrante.
    • Books on Books 4. New York: Errata Editions, 2009. . Reduced-size facsimile of the book of 1988, with an essay by Gerry Badger.
    • Books on Books 4. New York: Errata Editions, 2014. .
  • Here Comes Everybody: Chris Killip's Irish Photographs. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009. .
  • Seacoal. Göttingen: Steidl, 2011. .
  • Arbeit / Work. Essen: Museum Folkwang; Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. . Text in German and English; texts by Killip, David Campany and . A retrospective.
  • Isle of Man Revisited. Göttingen: Steidl, 2015. . A second, expanded edition of Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx.
  • In Flagrante Two. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. . A second, larger-format edition of the photographs constituting the 1988 book, with two extra photographs.
  • The Station. Göttingen: Steidl, 2020. .
  • Chris Killip. London: Thames & Hudson, 2022. . A retrospective.
  • Skinningrove. London: Stanley/Barker, 2024.

Other publications by Killip

  • "Chris Killip Photographs 1975–1976". London: Creative Camera, May 1977, number 155. Twenty-two plates, on pp. 150–171. (The title on the front cover is "Chris Killip Photographs 1975–1976 in the North East".)
  • Askam-in-Furness 1982. Southport: Café Royal, 2017. Edition of 500 copies. A zine.
  • Isle of Man TT Races 1971. Southport: Café Royal, 2018. Edition of 500 copies.
  • The Station. London: Ponybox. . 32-page tabloid newsprint publication.
  • The Last Ships. London: Ponybox. . 28-page tabloid newsprint publication.
  • Portraits. London: Ponybox. . 32-page tabloid newsprint publication.
  • Skinningrove. London: Ponybox. . 32-page tabloid newsprint publication.
  • Huddersfield 1974. Southport: Café Royal, 2019. Edition of 500 copies.
  • The Seaside 1975–1981. Southport: Café Royal, 2020. Edition of 500 copies.
  • Shipbuilding on Tyneside 1975–1976. Southport: Café Royal, 2020.
  • Chris Killip. Southport: Café Royal, 2020. Boxed set of the five booklets previously published by Café Royal.

Awards

Collections

Killip's work is held in the following permanent collections:

Notes

References

References

  1. (16 October 2020). "Chris Killip obituary". The Guardian.
  2. (14 October 2020). "Chris Killip, hard-hitting photographer of Britain's working class, dies aged 74". The Guardian.
  3. Justin Carville, "Chris Killip", ''Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Photography,'' ed. Lynne Warren (New York: Routledge, 2006; {{ISBN. 1-57958-393-8).
  4. Seymour, Tom. (14 October 2020). "British photographer Chris Killip remembered after battle with cancer".
  5. (14 October 2020). "Chris Killip: 'Remarkable' photographer dies aged 74". BBC News.
  6. Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, ''The Photobook: A History,'' vol. 2 (London: Phaidon, 2006; {{ISBN. 0-7148-4433-0), 299.
  7. Clive Dilnot, "Chris Killip's Portraits of the ''Pirelli'' Workforce", ''Pirelli Work,'' pp. 65–85.
  8. link. (17 October 2020 ", askyfilledwithshootingstars.com. Accessed 8 September 2009.)
  9. The book: ''Pirelli Work.'' Account of the photography: Killip, "What Happened", ''Pirelli Work,'' pp. 62–63.
  10. Liz Jobey, "[https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/apr/20/photography-book-chris-killip Photographer Chris Killip: return to a ritual landscape]", ''The Guardian,'' 20 April 2009. Accessed 19 September 2009.
  11. (31 March 2020). "Moshpit mayhem: The northern club where punks rampaged to Hellbastard". The Guardian.
  12. Angelos, Ayla. (15 April 2020). "An exclusive chat with photographer Chris Killip and his son – who uncovered a lost archive of an 80s punk venue".
  13. Angelos, Ayla. (31 July 2020). "Markéta Luskačová's Chiswick Women's Aid 1976–77 is finally brought to light after 44 years".
  14. Chronology in ''Chris Killip 55,'' pp. 126–27.
  15. (16 October 2020). "Chris Killip: Recognition for a great photographer". The Guardian.
  16. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20150311223753/http://en.le-bal.com/fr/mh/chris-killip-what-happened-great-britain-1970-1990-2/ What Happened / Great Britain 1970–1990]", Le Bal. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 11 March 2015.
  17. "[https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/chris_killip/ Now Then: Chris Killip and the Making of ''In Flagrante'']", J. Paul Getty Museum. Accessed 19 October 2020.
  18. Diane Smyth, "[https://www.bjp-online.com/2017/06/now-then-chris-killip-and-the-making-of-in-flagrante/ Now Then: Chris Killip and the Making of In Flagrante]", ''British Journal of Photography'', 6 June 2017. Accessed 19 October 2020.
  19. Carolina A. Miranda, "[https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cam-chris-killip-getty-museum-20170721-htmlstory.html Seven photos, seven stories: Chris Killip on capturing the declining industrial towns of England in the '70s and '80s]", ''Los Angeles Times'', 21 July 2017. Accessed 19 October 2020.
  20. "[https://laingartgallery.org.uk/whats-on/chris-killip-the-last-ships Chris Killip: The Last Ships]", Laing Art Gallery. Accessed 18 October 2020.
  21. "[https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/exhibitions/the-station-by-chris-killip/ The Station by Chris Killip]", Martin Parr Foundation. Accessed 18 October 2020.
  22. Kate Bush and Mark Sladen, eds, ''In the Face of History: European Photographers in the 20th Century''. London: Black Dog, 2006. {{ISBN. 978-1-904772-57-6.
  23. [[David Alan Mellor]], ''No such thing as society: Photography in Britain 1967–87: From the British Council and the Arts Council collection.'' London: Hayward, 2007. {{ISBN. 978-1-85332-265-5.
  24. Simon Bainbridge, "[http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/1727982/brits-abroad Brits Abroad]" {{webarchive. link. (24 October 2010, ''British Journal of Photography,'' 13 August 2010. "[http://yeslogo.pl/4photomonth/index.php/en/page/28/british-documentary-photography.html British Documentary Photography] {{webarchive). link. (16 April 2013 ", Photomonth Kraków. Both accessed 25 February 2011.)
  25. (23 March 2020). "Chris Killip's photos capture the freedom of punk in 80s north east England".
  26. (2024-06-16). "Chris Killip's 1980s photographs of the fishing village of Skinningrove".
  27. Carter, Kalum. (2024-05-01). "'Skinningrove' is the last publication Chris Killip worked on – and it features some of his finest photography".
  28. "Chris Killip".
  29. (26 November 2012). "Deutsche Börse 2013 – a shortlist that's short of photographers". The Guardian.
  30. link. (15 October 2020 ", Isle of Man Today, 5 October 2020. Accessed 15 October 2020.)
  31. "[https://www.dgph.de/sites/default/files/content/presse_news/pressemitteilungen/20200923_pm_dr._erich_salomon_final_e.pdf Chris Killip is being honoured with the Dr. Erich Salomon Award] {{Webarchive. link. (20 October 2020 " (PDF), DGPh (German Photographic Society), 25 September 2020.)
  32. "Explore: Artist > Chris Killip".
  33. "Chris Killip MoMA".
  34. "NGA collection search results".
  35. "Chris Killip".
  36. "Chris Killip born 1946".
  37. "Your Search Results".

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