Christopher ‘Kip’ Gresham
Fen, 1965-69
Kip Gresham, who has passed away aged 72, was a renowned printmaker and pioneer in screen-printing technology. He loved collaborating with artists, producing colourful abstract works and making prints for leading British and international artists.
In 1975, Kip co-founded the Manchester Print Workshop with Steve Currie. His work with artist Cecile Elstein featured in the exhibition A Printmaking Partnership (1991) at the City’s Whitworth Gallery. Painter and poet Adrian Henri was one of his many other collaborations from this period.
In 1982, Kip returned to Cambridge to establish the Chilford Hall Press with entrepreneur Sam Alper. Here, he collaborated with artists including Elisabeth Frink, Terry Frost and Philip Sutton. In 1989, Chilford Hall Press merged with Curwen Studio to form Curwen Chilford Prints, adding artists such as Gillian Ayres and Prunella Clough to his client list.
Kip developed True-Grain, a textured polyester drafting film that revolutionised hand-drawn prints. This innovation allowed printmakers to create fine washes and marks with various materials, which could be transferred straight to silk screens without intermediate steps. The first work made with True-Grain was Frink’s Green Man series. at the end of his partnership with Curwen Studio, Kip made the first of more than 40 editions with Eduardo Paolozzi, who moved with him when he struck out on his own to set up the Gresham Studio at Duxford in 1994.
Over the next seven years, Kip expanded his collaborations through portfolios for Jesus College, Cambridge; the Freud Museum, London; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington; and King’s College, Cambridge. Artists featured in these projects included Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield and Paula Rego.
After battling auto-immune disease in 2001, Kip re-emerged the following year with The Print Studio, Cambridge. He continued to work with artists such as Alan Davie, Barry Flanagan and John McLean. New collaborators included Stephen Chambers, Mali Morris and Nigel Hall. Kip’s studio pioneered digital methods to fuse drawings with complex overlapping patterns.
Born in London, Kip moved to Cambridge shortly after his birth. His mother, Gwen, was a consultant for child community care, and his father, Austin, was a professor of pathology. After The Leys Kip studied fine art at Newcastle University and later earned a higher diploma in art and printmaking at Manchester Polytechnic.
In the final decade of his life, Kip remained a sought-after printmaker, working on commissions for artists including Hurvin Anderson, Tacita Dean and Ai Weiwei. Just weeks before his death, he was working on monoprints with Willard Boepple. Kip’s prints are archived at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the Kassar Mochary Foundation, Tucson, Arizona. He documented his work in the book Kip Gresham: The Art of Collaboration (2019).
Kip was deeply involved in his Cambridge community, participating in the cycling fraternity, campaigning to save The Flying Pig pub, and taking an active role in St Paul’s church. He is survived by his wife, Jane Ashby, their sons Dan, Matt, Nick and Tim, and five grandchildren.
From Kip’s obituary in The Guardian, written by Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe and abridged here with her kind permission