Killip unpacked

Steve Fairclough talks to curator and author Ken Grant about the major new retrospective exhibition and book for the late, great British documentary photographer Chris Killip

- Steve Fairclough

Had Chris Killip pursued his initial career option, we’d have been looking at a hotel manager and not one of Britain’s greatest-ever photojournalists. But, thankfully for photography, he abandoned his hospitality training on his native Isle of Man and decided to chase a career in photography. He headed for the bright lights of London, where he worked as a freelance assistant for various photographers between 1964 and 1969. In the big city he met and worked with an impressive collection of people, such as photographers Adrian Flowers, Justin de Villeneuve, Jeanloup Sieff, David Hurn, Josef Koudelka, Diane Arbus and the artist and musician Ian Dury, who would become a long-term friend of Killip’s.

In 1969, after seeing his very first exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York – which featured the work of legendary Picture Post photographer Bill Brandt – Killip decided to return to the Isle of Man to shoot the island he knew. Although he viewed the Brandt show, Killip had apparently been most struck by MoMA’s permanent photography collection, which included the work of Walker Evans, Paul Strand and August Sander. Indeed, Evans’s ‘slow documentary’ style, and focus on working-class communities, were inspirational for Killip. But, as he often viewed other art forms, his inspirations were often not taken from photography. He was also soon influenced to switch from shooting in the 35mm format to using a plate camera by Bill Jay, the editor of the short-lived but influential art photography magazine Album, who found Killip’s 35mm work merely ‘okay’.