Tom and Jerry, biscuits and family life

Dad did seem to have home and work pretty clearly defined, basically everything was work. At home he had the two biggest rooms in the house, one as his studio, one as the store room for his paintings. He worked all the time, every day. Although our shelves were laden with Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Dickens, Colette and others, he relaxed by watching snooker or Tom and Jerry cartoons. Seriously. Or eating chocolate biscuits; the Kiffs spent many years on biscuit quality control checks. He was also brilliant at helping me with my homework. I found out I was dyslexic when I was 35. Turns out all the training they give you these days to help you study, dad was already doing for me, though no one really believed dyslexia existed then. I did because I was. We frequently reduced all my written work to pictures, diagrams, shapes and colours. At times my homework became 3D, modelled out of plasticine. I'm pretty damned sure he and my mother were dyslexic, it's all the rage now. My brother escaped this gift. 

Nice anecdote:

In class at school, I must have been 8 or 9 years old. We were doing a class on jobs/careers. I asked the boy next to me:

Me: What does your dad do?

Dominic: He's a painter.

Me : Omg! (or a 1970's version) So's mine! What does he paint?

Dominic: (Looking at me oddly) Walls. What does your dad paint?

Me: (Looking at him oddly) Pictures. 

Andrew Lambirth, Anselm Kiefer and a chat with the Marlborough

Ken Kiff By Andrew Lambirth

Norbert Lynton (foreward)
John McLean (epilogue)

February 2015

So, I go to the Marlborough to meet one of the directors, John Erle-Drax. He walks into the room preceded by his hair. He's been an excellent help and I really enjoy his company. Direct, blunt, cheerful. Quizzes me about some recent acupuncture research on lower back pain (my day job). We are in the downstairs room at the Marlborough where we are about to meet Andrew Lambirth who'll be writing the catalogue for dad's next exhibition. 
The room, a kind of showroom I guess, is large, well lit and has several of dad's paintings on stands for us to look at. It also has a massive Anselm Kiefer on the side wall. I'm a little nervous so I find myself making a comment to John about the Kiefer not being all that, when actually I think Keifer is pretty damned good. John slightly contradicts me but I can't then say 'well, actually yes, I agree with you' for fear of looking stupid/lame/sychophantic. So I say nothing. Damn!
Andrew arrives. We all chat. John leaves. Andrew and I chat some more. I am SUPER pleased he's writing the catalogue essay. I was going to say all sorts of nice things about him but actually he's just a bloody good writer.

Read his article on dad here.

Letters

Letter to Andrew Lambirth, 2000



September 2014

Dad was a prolific letter writer. Somewhat weirdly he photocopied every letter he sent. I have many childhood memories one of which is that dad was always going to the corner shop to photocopy his letters. I grew up thinking that's what you did - you wrote a letter then you photocopied it. Can you imagine! This is obviously in the day before emails which is great as he sketched on the letters a fair bit, obviously not possible on emails. I'm currently going through 10+ boxes of letters, writings, lectures as well as things ripped out of magazines, Private View cards etc. What's great with the letters is that there are copies he adjusted and tweaked, re-arranging paragraphs, sentences and thoughts, often repeatedly, giving a great insight to his thought process.

Allen Jones and Ian Keen were in the same year as dad at Hornsey College of Art. Allen obviously carried on painting and Ian went back to college to study anthropology, moving to Australia with his wife Libby in 1974. Twenty seven years of regular letter writing followed,
each letter containing a rough balance of family stuff and art stuff. Thoughts on galleries, people, works of art, his work processes, observations on his health, my brother and I at various stages of our lives and so on. Fascinating. My aim is to get some of dad's letters published at some point. Editing them heavily, separating the personal from the professional where possible, extracting the most interesting...

Metaphysical Friends

                                                  "In our game of fetch

I throw out meanings you swiftly catch, then refine

into sculptures of a beauty we both can name."

                                                     from Dyslexia, Aviva Dautch

September 2014
I committed an ethical crime...I stole a patient and made her my friend.  Willingly I have to add. I should explain. My day job is an acupuncturist. I've been practising for 21 years, worked in a hospital in China, done research for the NHS on pain, men's mental health, been nominated for a BMJ award. Yes, really. The British Medical Journal recognises the value of acupuncture now. I adore art, it was the oxygen in my house as I grew up. Poetry too. But my dad was such a massive presence I rebelled by becoming something (almost) totally unrelated to art. My parents pretty much let me do anything I wanted so actually there was nothing to rebel against, except getting a job in healthcare of course...
My patient was (is) a metaphysical poet. I had to do my 'OMG, what an interesting person! no, I can't make her my friend... professional boundaries and all that' conversation in my head.
But week after week, as her health improved, it was:

Me: 'Oh, do you know so and so?  
Oh yes, and I was chatting to X... 
Shit, you know X?
Only because I was introduced by Y
Y? You know Y?

And so it goes...I met someone from my past that I never knew at the time. My dad's love of poetry and poets that he knew shaped his work and my childhood hugely. My new friend was part of that group.

The Man From Christie's

Clown, 1996-99, hand coloured etching.

Later in August 2014

I forgot to mention! Rather fabulously and with great timing, Richard Lloyd, the head of Prints International at Christie's New York, emailed me that summer saying he was a huge fan of dad's prints. And could we meet when he's next in town. I thought about it for about half a second, then thought, 'yeah, ok, if we must'. 
Next thing I know I'm sitting in a cafe with Richard in Mayfair drinking mint tea with a silver spoon resting heavily and beautifully on my saucer. Richard is very English, not American at all. He has thick hair, a sharp suit, and Joe 90 spectacles. He politely listens to my story and tells me a few of his. We get on. I'm thrilled that a non friend of dad's likes his work. My confidence increases as I do think my dad's work is bloody good!
Richard was to become my 'rich uncle', rich in terms of advice and support. He flies in for business, we meet at Christie's, he whisks me off at high speed to a local coffee shop (he walks bloody fast). We speed chat and leave. It's great!! I'm very lucky. I have to say I'm slightly perplexed by this whole new world, it seems rather like a foreign language to me, a bit like Russian or something, but with beautiful objects so I'm going to carry on...