ReCollection: Kettle's Yard Oral History Archive

I think it's worth emphasizing that, as far as I understand, the very idea of domesticity that Jim had was quite unusual in itself. He was apparently always hiding his own personal possessions before visitors came in, for example, so it was not, never, the kind of domestic environment that you'd expect to find when you walk into someone's home. It was always quite controlled and certainly not something that would have that element of unpredictability and chance, you know, finding things that shouldn't really be there. Jim was always very aware of the position of pretty much everything so in that sense, you know, it's not the kind of domestic environment that one would associate with everyday living.

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The design of the extension is very much in line with taste of the time. It's much more modern than the architecture of the cottages. It's a very, very skillful juxtaposition of old and new. Certainly, a lot of architects, even today, come and visit Kettle's Yard. The way it works, is really as you walk into the extension, you find yourself in a space that's quite similar visually to what you have just left. You have literally just walked through a room and a bridge which have large windows, that's what you get here. The new element is the skylights that open up the space upwards and introduce light coming from above. As you move into the extension, it gets wider and then, further down, deeper as well so it's a progressive opening up of the architecture and it's a very successful way of doing it, it's really quite striking architecture. So you'll find yourself from quite narrow 19th century cottage rooms into a much bigger, much more airy and spacious room without really realising that that's happened and all of a sudden you're in an entirely different atmosphere. It's really quite a striking feature of the house, this addition.

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Jim liked to say that we really shouldn't worry about the name of the artist who made a picture or the title or anything before we approach the picture. It's the basic principle at the foundation of what he wanted to do here at Kettle's Yard, to allow people or encourage people to have a very personal, direct relationship with the artwork that's not mediated by art historical data and also that's not necessarily based upon the importance of the work, but rather on whether we like it or not. That's what mattered to him a lot. Obviously that sounds quite old fashioned nowadays. It's based on ideas developed in the twenties and thirties and formalist approach, the idea that a work of art can speak for itself whereas nowadays museums very much approach the presentation of collections by providing information and offering activities around the objects. Jim had a very different vision and sometimes those two visions clash, especially when you get visitors, and it's not infrequent, visitors do complain about the absence of labels and information. I mean, we do provide information through the house guide and above all through the invigilators so that's a way of retaining that personal relationship with the housekeeper in a sense.

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