Ken Kiff (1935-2001)

Ken Kiff is a British artist known for his visionary and distinct painting and printmaking practice, driven by his fascination with colour and a highly personal iconography.

 He studied at Hornsey School of Art in Haringey (1955-60), completing his teacher training there in 1961. He rose to prominence in the 1980s thanks in part to the support of Norbert Lynton, chief art critic at The Guardian newspaper. Kiff was included in the artist and curator Timothy Hyman’s seminal touring exhibition Narrative Paintings (1979). His first major solo exhibition Ken Kiff (1981) started at Talbot Rice Art Centre, Edinburgh, touring to Stirling and Dundee. Also in 1981, seventeen paintings were included in New Work on Paper I at the Museum of Moden Art, NY, curated by John Elderfield. His 1986 Arts Council supported exhibition, Paintings 1965-1985, toured from Serpentine Gallery, London to Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, marking his second show at Serpentine, the first being in 1975. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1991 and was the National Gallery Associate Artist for two years from 1991 to 1993, having a solo exhibition there in 1993. Kiff was also an influential teacher, having taught generations over 30 years, first at the Royal College of Art and simultaneously later at Chelsea School of Art.

Kiff’s reputation continues to grow in the decades since his death, aged 65. Known for a body of work that explored the complexities and contradictions of human experience, he developed what he described as "flexible realism”, combining history, philosophy and literature with everyday observation to allow for ambiguity, duality and multiple ways of seeing. His work feels increasingly relevant for the way it explores contradiction, vulnerability and the search for meaning through painting. In the 2026 book, Ken Kiff: The Complete Prints, Tom Morton wrote, “In the third decade of the twenty-first century, a more plural, polyvocal understanding of what matters in art abides… today it feels easier than ever to meet Kiff on his own terms.”

Influenced by artists including Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Joan Miró (1893-1983), Kiff’s commitment to Modernist values might have swum against the tide of his time, but today he is recognized for his quietly radical practice, with its unique imagery, commitment to the materials and ability to bridge figurative and abstract practices. He pursued the formal qualities of painting and printmaking - shape, line, texture and transparency – driven by exploration of the material, and emotional, properties of colour.

In 1971 Kiff began a body of work entitled The Sequence, a single body of 200 acrylic paintings on paper developed over three decades. Connected through recurring themes and colour theory, the works act as both an expansive self-portrait as well as a commentary on life and art in Britain in the later 20th century. The Sequence was the focus of a major exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (2018-19). 

Kiff was very interested in printmaking. In the 1980s his practice expanded from unique media to include etching, lithography, monotype and woodcut – collaborating with master printmakers across the UK, Europe and the US. Sixty-seven prints were editioned, fifty-seven of those in the 1990s, representing a dramatic shift in focus during the last decade of his career. A catalogue raisonné, Ken Kiff: The Complete Prints, will be published by Thames & Hudson in August 2026. 

Kiff’s influence continues to be seen not only through the works he created, but also the artists he tutored during a 30-year tenure at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and the generations influenced, in turn, by them, recently coined School of Kiff.

Kiff will be the subject of a major exhibition at Firstsite, Colchester in 2028, for which Lewis Dalton Gilbert has been appointed curator. This exhibition is expected to tour UK venues until late 2029.

Kiff’s works are included in the collections of: The Arts Council England, UK; The British Museum, UK; Royal Academy of Arts, UK; Tate, UK; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden; The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH, US; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA and many others.