In April 1964, the newly-established University of Essex received a donation of a number of artworks from HS Ede, including works by Alfred Wallis, Kit Wood, Ben Nicholson and Henri Guadier-Brzeska.  Better known as Jim Ede, he had been a curator at the Tate who had been collecting British-based artists for some time and creating a collection that was very much his own – and was to become Kettles’ Yard. 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”.

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