Decades before
Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen brandished his glue and staple guns, showing us how to
completely screw up a room, there was a tranquil and beautiful space, lovingly
pieced together by a man who had an intuitive ability to create an environment charged
with beauty, intelligence and sensitivity. His name was Jim Ede, one time
curator at the Tate Gallery during the 1930s. After a long period traveling he
moved to Cambridge and in 1956 renovated
four derelict cottages to create Kettle's Yard…
Along with his wife Helen, Ede
made this his home for 16 years and over that period amassed a beautiful
collection of paintings, sculptures, ceramics and mundane, but always
well-chosen domestic items. The art is mostly drawn from the first half of the
twentieth century and includes paintings by Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Alfred
Wallis, Christopher Wood, David Jones, Joan Miró and many others, along with
sculpture by artists including Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Constantin Brancusi,
Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Paintings and sculpture are interlaced with
furniture, glass, ceramics and natural objects. Ede's vision of Kettle's Yard
was of a place that was not
" an art gallery or museum, nor . . .
simply a collection of works of art reflecting my taste or the taste of a given
period. It is, rather, a continuing way of life from these last fifty years, in
which stray objects, stones, glass, pictures, sculpture, in light and in space,
have been used to make manifest the underlying stability . . ."
After the Jim Ede and his
wife Helen left Kettle’s Yard in 1975 the house and it’s contents where taken
over by the University of Cambridge and maintained to this day as Ede wanted it,
a living space for all to visit.
I first visited Kettle’s Yard – a special place for me - in
the 70’s and have been back regularly over the ensuing years, including the
late 80s, where I used it as the perfect environment to propose to my second
wife. I wanted to do it in a place that had a real meaning to me. (The spell
didn’t last as we are now divorced) But the place still holds the magic. For
anyone interested in 20th art, removed from the clinical and overly precious
gallery environment, but instead, arranged in an intimate domestic setting with
enormous charm then Kettle’s Yard is a must. But take my advice don’t propose
there.
Kettle’s Yard open each afternoon (apart from Mondays)
visitors
can ring the bell and ask to look around.
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