A coach visit to Kettle’s Yard and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, leaving Memorial Gardens at 08:00 and aiming to return to York at 20:00. There will be no group booking for lunch; there is a small café at Kettle’s Yard and a major one in the Fitzwilliam.

In the late 1950s, Jim Ede, one-time curator at the Tate and friend to many of the artists who shaped the history of twentieth-century century British art, transformed four tiny dilapidated cottages that then comprised Kettle’s Yard to create a fitting home for his wonderful collection of paintings, sculpture, glass, ceramics and other objects that he had gathered during his peripatetic life. These include definitive works by Ben Nicholson, David Jones, Alfred Wallis, Winifred Nicholson, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, and so much more. The harmonious whole, now sensitively maintained by the University of Cambridge, in itself forms an incomparable work of art and is the main objective of our visit to Cambridge.

Arriving at Kettle’s Yard by mid-day, we will enjoy a short curatorial introduction, then have ample time for a leisurely appreciation of the collection and a visit the associated Art Gallery next door.  On departure, a short walk (15-20 mins) will take us to the Fitzwilliam Museum for personal time here. We are most fortunate that our visit will coincide with the display of Botticelli’s Venus and Mars which will be making the journey to Cambridge as part of the National Gallery’s two-hundredth birthday celebrations.

Contact the organiser, Sue Greenhow (details below),for more information.

Kettle’s Yard house and art gallery CC BY-SA 2.0, Link