Field Trip: Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
Category: Field Trips
It’s not exactly an undiscovered treasure. I’d been seeing photos of Kettle’s Yard on Instagram since it reopened in 2018. But I never fully comprehended what it was until a daytrip to Cambridge made me think, Wait, isn’t Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge? Perhaps I’m biased, but an afternoon visit to Jim and Helen Ede’s home-cum-gallery was the highlight of a history and culture filled day in the town.
The Ede’s moved to Cambridge in the mid-1950s, having spent time living in London, Tangier and Blois, in the Loire valley. Ede was a man with a clear plan “to be lent a great house in the verge of a city - or a place of beauty in a town (I have Cambridge in mind) + make it all that I could of lived in beauty [sic], + each room an atmosphere of quiet and simple charm + open to the public (in Cambridge to students especially.”And that’s exactly what he did.
Kettle’s Yard is the result. The Edes acquired four dilapidated 19th century cottages and had them joined together, adding an extension in 1970. The couple filled their home with art works they had collected after years curating for the National Gallery (now Tate Britain) and befriending many artists in London, Paris and beyond. (The Kettle’s Yard website tells of Jim meeting Theo Van Gogh’s widow in 1923. She showed him many of Vincent’s unsold canvasses. Apparently, Ede could not convince the National Gallery to acquire them.)
Alongside pieces by Ben Nicholson, Constantin Brancusi, Christopher Wood and many others, there are also found objects, most notably beach pebbles.
So many pebbles, in fact, that Ian Hamilton Finlay dubbed Kettle’s Yard The Louvre of the pebble and commemorated it in this sculpture.
The whole visit was a revelation and a much needed boost to my creative batteries. Who hasn’t picked up pebbles on a beach only for them to languish in a drawer or cupboard? At the very least - and it’s so much more - Kettle’s Yard will give you some inspiration for ways to display your beach finds.
As if that wasn’t already enough, there’s also a gallery space which we didn’t have time to check out. I can’t wait to go back.
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