Kip Gresham (1951 - 2024)
It is with great sadness that we hear that Master-Printmaker, Artist, Gallery Supporter and Friend, Kip Gresham, passed away on 23rd May 2024, following a long battle with cancer.
Kip Gresham photographed by Hannah Munby at The Print Studio, Cambridge (October 2023)
Our thoughts are with his wife Jane and the Gresham family and all the many artists with whom Kip collaborated so fruitfully in his exceptional career.
During the few years that we worked with and got to know Kip at Fen Ditton Gallery, he shared so much knowledge and time with us, at a moment in his life when time was very precious. We will always be incredibly grateful to him for that.
Since Fen Ditton Gallery’s launch in 2018, we have included examples of fine art printmaking which included a sequence of works by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham with whom Kip had collaborated during his time at Curwen Press. However, our relationship with Kip really began with ‘The Language of Abstraction’ (January 2022), a major exhibition of modern artists working within the rich conceptual and visual language of abstract art through the medium of print. This was a visual language that Kip arguably connected with most passionately.
Amongst others, this exhibition introduced the gallery to Kip’s collaborative work with American sculptor Willard Boepple. A solo exhibition ‘Shards and Sources’ followed in May/June 2023 which showed, alongside recent prints, new low relief works by Boepple, which had their roots in his 20-year printmaking dialogue with Kip. Amanda remembers with pleasure the opportunity to contribute to a modest catalogue for this show alongside an essay by the legendary modernist American art critic Michael Fried! Another wonderful connection made by Kip.
Kip Gresham and Willard Boepple at work at The Print Studio, Cambridge. Photograph by Lotte Attwood.
All of us visited The Print Studio regularly from then on. During one visit in October 2023, Lotte was invited to photograph Willard and Kip at work deepening the connection between gallery and print studio. Some of those photographs will be included in a major book on Kip Gresham due to come out in the next year.
A visit to the studio was never complete until Kip has riffled through one of the many plan chests of prints to find the exact print he wanted you to see, as though it was made for you. He had a generosity of spirit and attention, sharing his devotion to printmaking through thoughtful conversation. Kip spoke to packed audiences at the gallery a number of times over the last few years, as well as in conversation with Fitzwilliam Curator Elenor Ling during the Shards and Sources exhibition. You can listen to that conversation here.
As well as his own exhibitions, Kip supported Hannah on the Contemporary Printmaking Prize (April 2023), sitting on the judging panel alongside Elenor Ling and Sir Richard Heaton, and together they hosted a Young Collectors’ event at the studio (September 2023).
Left: Kip Gresham and Nigel Hall RA at the opening night of ‘A Gathering of Friends’ (April 2024). Right: Kip giving studio tours of The Print Studio, Cambridge during a Young Collectors’ event (September 2023)
Most recently, we are honoured to hold what was to be Kip’s last exhibition during his lifetime, ‘A Gathering of Friends: Prints from Kip Gresham Editions’ (April/May 2024). The opening night was a true gathering of friends, artists and admirers of Kip and his work. The exhibition highlighted some twenty years of Kip’s recent printmaking activity, ranging from two of the thirty plus editions he made with Alan Davie in the 1990s to Kip’s last print made with contemporary artist Hurvin Anderson, released in March this year: an astonishing career and legacy became even more apparent.
Kip’s interest in people and ideas as well as his profound command of printmaking processes inspired and supported many others. He once referred to us here at Fen Ditton Gallery as the ‘three-legged stool’ – reminding us that collaboration is key to all things well achieved. We thank him for that wonderful, and apt, image!
In sum, we would all like to extend a huge thank you to Kip, Jane and The Print Studio for their support of Fen Ditton Gallery. We will always remember him for his absolute devotion to spreading the wonders of printmaking, his kind and gentle manner and his vast and extensive experience from which we learnt so much.
His legacy will continue in so many ways.
With kind regards,
Hannah, Lotte and Amanda x