A Room to Live In - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844714209 ISBN 13: 9781844714209

Publisher: Salt Publishing, 2007

Synopsis

A Room to Live In is a celebration of a unique place in British art. Kettle’s Yard was the Cambridge home of Jim Ede, the visionary collector and curator, who opened his doors to generations of students and art lovers. To mark Kettle’s Yard’s first 50 years, and its lasting legacy, this anthology brings together an extraordinary group of writers, all of whom have been influenced by the house and its remarkable collection. This anthology is essential for anyone who has visited Kettle’s Yard or admires its artists, such as Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Alfred Wallis.

Edited by Tamar Yoseloff, with a Foreword by Michael Harrison, Director of Kettle’s Yard, and an Introduction by Tamar Yoseloff.

Contributors include: Alan Bennett, Anne Berkeley, Meredith Bowles, Richard Burns, Michael Bywater, Claire Crossman, Tony Curtis, Fred D’Aguiar, Jane Duran, Elaine Feinstein, John Greening, David Hare, Jeremy Hooker, Sue Hubbard, Martha Kapos, John Kinsella, Rod Mengham, John Mole, Sharon Morris, Ruth Padel, Ian Patterson, Jacob Polley, Andrea Porter, Lawrence Sail, Fiona Sampson, Sarah Skinner, Ali Smith, Robert Vas Dias, Susan Watson, Neil Wenborn, Tamar Yoseloff.

About this title

About the Author

Tamar Yoseloff was born in the US in 1965. She is the author of three poetry collections, the most recent entitled Fetch (Salt, 2007). She is also the author of Marks, a collaboration with the artist Linda Karshan, and the editor of A Room to Live In: A Kettle's Yard Anthology. Her upcoming collection, The City with Horns, is due in May 2011. She lives in London, where she is a freelance tutor in creative writing.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Kettle’s Yard began its life when, in 1956, H.S. ‘Jim’ Ede came to Cambridge, looking for ‘a great house’ where he and his wife, Helen, could live and where he could introduce his ideas about living spaces, and the role that art could play in them, to successive generations of students.


Ede had set out wanting to become an artist, but at a young age had found himself effectively the first curator of modern art at the Tate Gallery. It was during those years in the 1920s and ‘30s that he formed the basis of the collection that was to become Kettle’s Yard, largely through friendships with artists such as David Jones, Ben and Winifred Nicholson, and Christopher Wood, but also through the acquisition of the estate of Sophie Brzeska which made him the prime holder of the work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

For twenty years he and Helen lived first in Morocco and then in France before returning to England to fulfil his ‘quixotic scheme’. Cambridge could not provide the stately home he sought and instead he adopted a row of all-but derelict cottages nestling beneath St Peter’s Church. In little time the cottages had been remodelled as a single house and Jim had begun to open his door to afternoon visitors.

The Edes lived here until 1973 before retiring to Edinburgh. In the meantime Kettle’s Yard had become an institution of the University and Jim’s ambitions for a great house, where music would also play a part, had been achieved with the addition of Sir Leslie Martin’s extension. Since then, Kettle’s Yard has continued to grow with an expanding exhibition gallery as an essential foil to the house and there are plans for an education wing to come.

But the house, itself, remains as Jim Ede’s unique creation, continuing to enchant and inspire visitors, con?tinuing to ask questions about where and how we live. Periodically we ask artists to bring new work into the house, to introduce new observations and pose new questions. Here we have an anthology of prose and poetry to do the same.

We are deeply grateful to all these writers who have responded with such generosity and creativity to our invitation, to Chris Hamilton-Emery at Salt for so readily agreeing to publish, and to Tamar Yoseloff who has literally given herself over the last months to compiling and editing this rich tribute to a much loved place.

Michael Harrison
Director, Kettle’s Yard

Edition details

• Publisher: Salt Publishing
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844714209
• ISBN 13: 9781844714209
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128
• Editor: Yoseloff Tamar