Ken Kiff RA

(1935-2001)

Ken Kiff was a British painter, printmaker, and teacher known for a distinctive visual language that combined figuration, symbolism, and abstraction. Born in Dagenham, Essex, he studied at Hornsey School of Art and later taught for many years at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1991 and served as Associate Artist in Residence at the National Gallery from 1991–93. Kiff is particularly associated with The Sequence, a group of around two hundred interconnected paintings developed over several decades, as well as the Badminton works, in which recurring figures, animals, and dreamlike landscapes form a psychologically charged and often mythic world. Alongside painting, he developed a substantial printmaking practice from the 1980s onwards, working across woodcut, etching, monotype, and lithography. Although we know Kiff worked with Stanley Jones at Curwen on several lithographs, we only have one in the Curwen Archive.