Jim Ede

He began to train as a painter under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn and then at Edinburgh College of Art before the First World War interrupted his studies.

Ede drew extensively on the letters written by Gaudier to Brzeska, and her writings and other material, when he published A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska (London: W. Heinemann) in 1930; the 1931 and later editions are entitled Savage Messiah.

Somewhat ahead of his time, he adopted a minimalist style of interior design advocating plain white-washed walls and the minimum of furniture required to complete a room.

For the next twenty years, he led an itinerant life, writing, broadcasting and lecturing in Europe and America, while keeping the house in Morocco as a base.

[5] Returning to England in 1956, Ede converted four cottages in Cambridge with the help of Winton Aldridge as a place to live and display his art collection.

It was part of his philosophy that art should be shared in a relaxed environment; to this end he would hold 'open house', giving personal tours of the collection to students from the University of Cambridge over afternoon tea.

In 1970, an exhibition gallery was added to Kettle's Yard in a modernist style by Leslie Martin and this was extended by Jamie Fobert Architects from 2015.