Jim Ede

• Name — Jim Ede • Born — 7 March 1895 • Birthplace — Penarth, Wales • Died — 15 March 1990 • Place of death — Edinburgh, Scotland • Known for — Kettle's Yard Art collecting • Spouse — Helen Schlapp

• Illustration — Kettle's Yard, Cambridge Jim Ede was born in Penarth, Wales, the son of solicitor Edward Hornby Ede and Mildred, a teacher. He attended the Leys School in Cambridge (1909-12). He began to train as a painter under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn and then at Edinburgh College of Art before the First World War interrupted his studies. He was commissioned in September 1914, serving with the South Wales Borderers and the Indian Army. He relinquished his commission in consequence of ill health, and was granted the rank of captain, 29 July 1919. After the war, he continued his studies at the Slade School of Art. In 1921, Ede became assistant curator at the National Gallery of British Art (renamed the Tate Gallery in 1932) in London while continuing to study part-time at the Slade. Shortly after, he married Helen Schlapp whom he had met in Edinburgh. Her father Otto Schlapp lectured at the University of Edinburgh and in 1926 became the University's first Professor of German. Robert Schlapp was her brother. While working at the Tate, Ede tried to promote the work of contemporary artists, including Picasso and Mondrian. However, he was often thwarted by the more conservative attitudes of the gallery directors. During his time at the Tate, Ede formed numerous friendships with avant-garde artists of the day. In the process, he acquired many works of art that were largely under-appreciated at the time. In 1927 Ede had acquired Sophie Brzeska's estate from the Treasury Solicitor after she died intestate in 1925. This acquisition included not only her writings, but also the estate of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, with many of his works and papers. Ede drew extensively on the letters written by Gaudier to Brzeska, and her writings and other material, when he published A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska (London: W. Heinemann) in 1930; the 1931 and later editions are entitled Savage Messiah. Ede's book became the basis of Ken Russell's film of the same name.

In 1936, Ede tired of fighting the establishment at the Tate and left to live in Morocco, building a house outside Tangiers. Somewhat ahead of his time, he adopted a minimalist style of interior design advocating plain white-washed walls and the minimum of furniture required to complete a room. For the next twenty years, he led an itinerant life, writing, broadcasting and lecturing in Europe and America, while keeping the house in Morocco as a base. His correspondence with T. E. Lawrence was published by the Golden Cockerel Press in 1942. The collection of forty-four original letters from Lawrence were donated to the University of Essex by Ede in 1964.