Kettle's Yard

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title: "Kettle's Yard" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["art-museums-and-galleries-established-in-1966", "art-museums-and-galleries-in-cambridgeshire", "museums-in-cambridge", "museums-of-the-university-of-cambridge", "non-school-institutions-of-the-university-of-cambridge", "country-houses-in-cambridgeshire", "1966-establishments-in-england"] description: "Art museum & house in Cambridge, England" topic_path: "society/education" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle's_Yard" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Art museum & house in Cambridge, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox museum"]

Field	Value
name	Kettle's Yard
image	KettlesYard.jpg
alt	The cottages which comprise the main house of Kettle's Yard
caption	The cottages which comprise the main house of Kettle's Yard
coordinates
established
dissolved
location	Cambridge
collections	art collections
visitors	231,941 (2019)
founder	Jim Ede
director	Andrew Nairne
owner	University of Cambridge
network	University of Cambridge Museums
website
::

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Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities.

History and overview

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Kettle's_Yard.JPG" caption="Castle Street]] as it looked before the 2018 redevelopment"] ::

Kettle's Yard House and Gallery lies on the west side of Castle Street, between Northampton Street and St Peter's Church.

It was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages with the help of Winton Aldridge 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, particularly students, a personal tour of his collection.

In 1966, Ede gave the house and collection to the University of Cambridge, but continued living there before he and his wife moved to Edinburgh in 1973. The house is preserved as the Edes left it, making a very informal space to enjoy the permanent collection and live music. In 1970, the house was extended, adding an exhibition gallery in a contrasting modernist style by Leslie Martin.

The house and gallery temporarily closed in June 2015 during a major building project to create a four-floor education wing, improved exhibition galleries, a new entrance area and a café. A series of gentle additions by Jamie Fobert Architects offers greatly improved support services for visitors, including a new courtyard and welcome area and a new shop. The project cost £11,000,000 including £2,320,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3,700,000 from Arts Council England. The interior of the house has been left untouched.

During the closure, there were displays of the collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings.

Kettle's Yard is part of the University of Cambridge Museums consortium.

Permanent collection

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Diet_sayler5.jpg" caption="An exhibition of [[Diet Sayler]] in the gallery in 2000"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Christopher_Wood_Autoportrait_1927.jpg" caption="access-date=27 December 2018}}"] ::

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 a curator at Tate Gallery, and as such primarily features works from the British avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century.

Ian Hamilton Finlay described Ede's "fusion of art and found objects" on an inscribed pebble as "the Louvre of the pebble".

Notable artists represented in the collection are:

• Constantin Brâncuși
• William Congdon
• Helen Frankenthaler
• Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
• Ian Hamilton Finlay
• Barbara Hepworth
• David Jones
• Joan Miró
• Henry Moore
• Ben Nicholson
• David Peace
• Winifred Nicholson
• Alfred Wallis
• Christopher Wood

References

References

1. "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions".
2. [http://www.culture24.org.uk/se000377 Kettle's Yard], [[Culture 24]], UK.
3. (4 December 2017). "Works by artist who died in Grenfell fire to be shown at Cambridge gallery". The Guardian.
4. "Kettle's yard house".
5. "Kettle's Yard music - chamber concerts".
6. "Development plans – Kettle's Yard".
7. "Work; Kettle's Yard".
8. (2 February 2018). "Kettle's Yard's rebirth: 'A magical sequence of spaces worth the 14-year wait'". The Guardian.
9. "Latest news".
10. McPhee, Jo. (6 August 2013). "Our Museums".
11. "Self-Portrait, 1927".
12. Exhibition catalogue 'Beauty and Revolution: The Poetry and Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay' Kettles Yard, Cambridge 2014

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::