Kettle’s Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge.
Kettle’s Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede’s collection of early 20th century art. Ede maintained an ‘open house’ each afternoon, giving any visitors a personal tour of his collection.
In 1966, Ede gave the house and collection to the University of Cambridge, but continued living there before moving to Edinburgh in 1973. In 1970, the house was extended, adding an exhibition gallery in a contrasting modernist style by Leslie Martin.
Today, ‘the house’ is preserved as the Edes left it, making a very informal space to enjoy the permanent collection and live music. ‘The gallery’ has longer opening times and displays a programme of visiting exhibitions, principally by 20th century and 21st century artists.
The New gallery extension.
The permanent collection is composed of paintings, sculptures and objects collected by Ede. It is largely based on associations and friendships formed when Ede was curator at Tate Gallery, as such it is biased towards works from the British avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century. This is what makes the collection so interesting and compelling to me.
Notable artists represented in the collection are: Ben Nicholson,Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Winifred Nicholson, Alfred Wallis, Constantin Brancusi, and Joan Miró.
It is a wonderful treat. Search it out the next time you are in Cambridge. Here are a couple of treats from the gallery.
Thank you. Kettle’s Yard has to be one of my favourite places in the world. I don’t live in the UK anymore but I was a regular visitor and would take small groups of my Art A Level students there. I’m a huge fan of the work of Gaudier Brzeska. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to slip the lovely brass doorknocker he made that just idly proppped up on top of the toilet sistern into my bag….