Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge is the culmination of a life spent collecting and living with art. Celebrated as a masterclass in balance and restraint, this quietly radical house brings together modern art, found objects and natural forms in a series of carefully composed rooms alive with light. More than seventy years later, the house remains open for visitors to discover works by acclaimed twentieth-century artists including Ben Nicholson, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Alfred Wallis and Barbara Hepworth. First published in 1984, A Way of Life was written and assembled by Jim Ede and includes his personal selection of remarkable black and white photographs. Conceived with the same care and attention he devoted to the Kettle’s Yard house, A Way of Life has been described as Ede’s other great work of art. Full of insights into the work of his artist friends, Ede’s reflective commentary is interwoven with excerpts from the spiritual and poetic texts that shaped his ethos, creating a unique and timeless anthology on art and life. More than a record of one house, A Way of Life is an invitation to pause, to look closely, and to discover the underlying harmony of light, space and living.
