Kiff Slemmons

United States, b. 1944

Place of BirthMaxton, North Carolina, United States

BiographyKiff Slemmons was born in 1944 in Maxton, North Carolina and was raised in Adel, Iowa. In 1968, she received a BA in art and French from the University of Iowa, where her undergraduate studies included a year at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has been influenced by the chance and transformation of Dada and Surrealist theory and the focus on materials and structure in Constructivism. Equally important to her is the love of language, tools, and the printed word that she acquired from her father, a newspaper publisher and editor.

A self-taught metalsmith, Slemmons has exhibited nationally and internationally for over thirty years. In 2000, she had a mid-career exhibition, The Thought of Things: Jewelry by Kiff Slemmons at the Palo Alto Art Center, California. Her work can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Mint Museum, North Carolina; Contemporary Museum, Hawai'i; and the Tacoma Art Museum, Washington.