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His photographs of art and craft objects went beyond documentation
David Cripps, who has died aged 74, was the leading British photographer of objects of his generation. His work helped to launch the careers of countless artists and makers. David had a supreme gift for showing his subjects – from ceramics to studio glass and jewellery – with a new clarity and candour, bringing out form, colour and texture through his crisp use of light and shadow, and setting his subjects in a studied space that gave context and breadth. His photography went beyond documentation, adding a new dimension to the objects on which he set his camera.
Much of his observational skill came from his graphic training, a visual sense that was nurtured early. He was born in Fulham, south-west London, into a family of modest means. His mother had been in service (the poet John Masefield was among her employers) and his father was a gas fitter. Though he was often ill as a child, his parents recognised an ability that gained him a place at the Sir Christopher Wren school in Notting Hill, west London. The school was linked to Hammersmith School of Art, and much of the curriculum was devoted to art and architecture, giving David a portfolio sufficient to take him to the London College of Printing in the mid-1950s. He went on to work in Chelsea as a graphic artist for Hans Schleger, the German-born designer famous for his London Transport circle and bar symbol for bus stops and pioneering work on corporate identity. This was a heady time, with David very much part of the swinging London art scene.
Following a period in an advertising agency, David got a job at the new Observer colour supplement, assisting the art director. It was here that his photographs were first seen, initially fashion shots and then still lifes for the cover. This made him an obvious choice for the memorable still-life sequence that accompanied Raymond Hawkey‘s titles for Richard Attenborough’s film Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), for which Hawkey and David received great acclaim.
After a period of personal difficulties, David resurfaced at the time Crafts magazine was launching in 1973. By chance he met its art director John Hawkins who employed David to photograph craft objects for its features, and the characteristic simplicity of David’s style became an integral part of the publication, and the modern crafts imagery of the 70s and 80s. In 1975 Bruce Bernard, the discerning picture editor of the Sunday Times magazine, spotted David’s photographs and employed him immediately. As Bernard would later write, David’s work “showed a much more particular appreciation of each individual object than I had ever seen before … He uses light to illuminate not blind … and sees every subject as an entirely separate problem … But his unique respect for the subjects does not rob his pictures of their graphic strength.”
As well as extensive work for the Crafts Council (which gave him a retrospective in 1979) and Design magazine, Cripps contributed to many books in the late 70s and 80s. These included numerous monographs and catalogues on artists and makers such as Charles Sargeant Jagger, Lucie Rie, Elizabeth Fritsch, Alison Britton and, more recently, Ewen Henderson, Carol McNicoll and Michael Rowe, many of whom became valued friends. There were his contributions to major surveys such as Wealth of the Roman World for the British Museum (1977), Dada and Surrealism Reviewed for the Hayward Gallery (1978), British Craft Textiles (1985) and Quilts of the British Isles (1987). Books for the popular market included charming studies with Mary Stewart-Wilson of Queen Mary’s dolls’ house (1988) and the Royal Mews (1991), each project cherished for how it might broaden his perception and technique. He was a fine portraitist, and his personal work included superb landscape, still-life and flower studies, many of which were exhibited in solo shows in London and Birmingham in the mid-1990s.
While David was involved in several recent projects, including recording much of the great ethnographic collection at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, London, and work on Royal Mail commemorative stamps, he was semi-retired by 1998, the year he moved from north London to Ramsgate. Though distant from his favourite Soho drinking haunts, he relished his new Kent friends, and a large house to renovate. And while not the world’s best businessman – bills were things you never opened – he brought his sensibility to stylish dressing, good cooking and a lasting interest in art.
A perfectionist, his asides on substandard work were pithy and wonderfully blunt. But he was one of the warmest people I have known, and it was this modesty and empathy that he brought to the camera, a lasting contribution for which he was made an MBE. As Bernard wrote: “Through his dedication to the work of the artist craftsman he has himself became a true artist and craftsman of the camera.”
He is survived by his partner, the knitter Annie Fewlass, and his son Aaron, by his marriage to Janice Wainwright.
• David Cripps, photographer, born 30 April 1938; died 20 January 2013
via Art and design: Photography | guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/feb/25/david-cripps-obituary David Whiting Thanks for reading Jay
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