Kettle's Yard, Cambridge.

 

Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

 In Cambridge on a U3A trip to the Cambridge Arts Theatre on Easter Saturday, after an early arrival, I decided against wandering around the centre in favour of locating Kettle’s Yard where I had spotted, online, that there was an ongoing exhibition of the work of the world-famous potter, Lucie Rie. Kettle’s Yard turned out to be a beautiful location with a generous and imaginative exhibition space plus an amazing shop, always a plus for any museum visit!! I knew my sister, Heather, used to speak warmly of visiting various exhibitions there and, though we spoke of going together, despite our best intentions, we never managed it.

Jim Ede in Kettle's Yard. Late Fifties

Available from the shop at Kettle's Yard.
Vintage poster tea towel, featuring
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Wrestlers 1914 

It is a highly individual space and house so I was intrigued to discover its recent history. Kettle’s Yard is now part of Cambridge University Museums to which it was donated in 1966. It became the home of Jim Ede and his wife, Helen, in 1956 when they moved to Cambridge and, looking for a larger home, discovered four small terraced cottages at Kettle’s Yard. They bought, and the brief for architect, Winton Aldridge, was to convert the four small houses into an interesting larger house plus to create an exhibition space for Ede’s collection of early 20^th century art. Once installed, Ede maintained an ‘open house’ each afternoon with students a special priority for the personal tours of his collection. In 1966 he gave the entire house and collection to Cambridge University but the Edes remained in situ until 1973 when they moved to Edinburgh. Before they left, in 1970 Cambridge University extended the house and added a purpose-built exhibition gallery in a contrasting modernist style designed by Leslie Martin. When the Edes finally moved north in 1973, the main house was preserved as they had left it, providing an informal space for live music and small exhibitions.

Part of the house

The decision was eventually made to further extend Kettle’s Yard and both house and gallery were closed in June 2015 for a major building project. A four-floor education wing was built with improved exhibition galleries, a new entrance area and a cafe. Jamie Fobert Architects also included relatively small modifications which effected greatly improved support services for visitors, like the new courtyard, the welcome area and new shop. The entire project cost £11 million with the Heritage Lottery Fund contributing £2,320,000 and the Arts Council, £3,700,000. It is now a first class exhibition venue with an excellent collection of early 20^th century art plus the original Ede home offering idiosyncratic and artistic space for many activities..

The new exhibition area extends the old space
in similar faultless style

 
The collection itself includes works by Constantin Brancusi; William Congdon; Helen Frankenthaler; Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; Ian Hamilton Finlay; Barbara Hepworth; David Jones; Joan Miro; Henry Moore; Ben Nicholson; David Peace; Winifred Nicholson; Alfred Wallis; Christopher Wood. A litany of the early Twentieth century greats of the art world.

In addition to these formally-recognised treasures, are the famous ‘pebbles’ of Jim Ede. He particularly loved ‘objets trouves’ and fell in love with pebbles from beach and stream and river with a passion, avidly collecting these all his life. Spiral of Stones is an arrangement of 76 circular pebbles, carefully positioned by the creator of Kettle’s Yard himself. This demonstrates the importance of found and natural objects at Kettle’s Yard, which can be seen in

varying arrangements throughout the house. He felt that people make personal connections to the colour, shape or pattern of pebbles or stones that they pick up. He wrote:

“I will discard 10,000 in my search for one whose outward shapes exactly balances my idea of what a pebble is ……. you may search a wide seashore or the reaches of many a river and never find one, then suddenly, it lies before you, an ordered unit, shaped of this order, from the countless vicissitudes of nature’s course…… We find a perfect pebble once in a generation, once in a continent, perhaps.”

Modest footnote:

I have collected pebbles and small stones throughout my life. It must be said, in a much less demanding way than Jim Ede did. His was of a  higher magnitude and standard altogether but, nonetheless, my touchstones were the colour and shape, and overall artistic appeal to my eye. When I moved to Bruges, I had hundreds and valiantly discarded many. Moving to Bury with its significant downsizing has meant the decimation of my lovely collection, now in single numbers. One does not know the magnitude of the difficult decisions of higher ageing until one staggers up there!!