In store now! Ways of Life : Jim Ede and the Kettle's Yard Artists by Laura Freeman
The lives of Jim Ede and the Kettle's Yard artists represent a thrilling tipping point in twentieth-century modernism: a new guard, a new way of making and seeing, and a new way of living with art. The artists Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska were not a set like the Bloomsbury Set or Ravilious and his friends.
But Jim Ede recognised in each of the artists he championed something common and kindred, some quality of light and life and line. Jim Ede is the figure who unites them. His vision continues to influence the way we understand art and modern living.
He was a man of extraordinary energies: a collector, dealer, fixer, critic and, above all, friend to artists. For Ede, works of art were friends and art could be found wherever you looked - in a pebble, feather or seedhead. Art lived and a life without art, beauty, friendship and creativity was a life not worth living.
Art was not for galleries alone and it certainly wasn't only for the rich. At Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, he opened his home and his collection to all comers. He showed generations of visitors that learning to look could be a whole new way of life.
Keep up with news from Jonathan Cape here @JonathanCape
Order your copy today directly through October Books or buy online through our bookshop store and we’ll get a commission on your purchase.
Ways of Life by Laura Freeman
Hardback £30
Order your copy today directly from October Books or buy online through our bookshop store and we’ll get commission on your purchase.
We are open:
Monday - Saturday
10am - 5.30 pm
We are back open six days a week, with the whole store open for browsing. We will still of course be taking customer orders and you will still be able to buy food and cleaning products online through our online store.
We are able to be open 6 days a week again because of your consideration and care whilst in the shop. Though things are opening up, covid cases are still high and a lot of our staff have only received one jab. So we are asking customers to continue to leave that extra space, sanitise their hands and pull on their mask. We really appreciate it.