Mlle Bourgoint by Christopher Wood (1928)

Jim Ede Collection at The University Space at firstsite

Monday 18 March to Sunday 9 June 2013

The University of Essex and firstsite will present an exhibition of works from the University’s Jim Ede Collection, including paintings by Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson, Richard Pousette-Dart and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

In 1964, the newly-established University received a donation of a number of artworks from influential art collector and former Tate curator Jim Ede. Exhibited in the University Space at firstsite, the Jim Ede Collection exhibition showcases a selection of artworks that illustrate the breadth of his collection and his deliberate focus on British-based art and artists.

Jim Ede had been collecting such artists for some time, creating an extraordinary collection that was to become Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. He described it as a “living place” where art could be enjoyed in a domestic setting unhampered by the austerity of the gallery or museum. As new universities were built in the 1960s, full of post-war vision and idealism, Ede declared that there “should be a Kettle’s Yard in every university”. These pictures in the University of Essex’s collection would have been part of Kettle’s Yard, but Jim Ede hoped that by giving out a few works, we would be inspired to make a collection of our own.

His donation played a formative role of instilling a passion for art that would further blossom in the emergence of the University’s Collection of Latin American Art (ESCALA) and Art Exchange, the University’s gallery that brings new art onto campus through an ever changing programme of exhibitions, thereby making art and culture part of the student experience.

Accompanying the Jim Ede Collection exhibition are series of talks expanding on themes raised, including a talk by Kettle’s Yard Director Andrew Nairne on the genesis of the Jim Ede collection and why the donation was made to Essex.

Ends

Images are available.

For further information please contact Steve Goatman T: 01206 874985 E: steveg@essex.ac.uk