Portrait: sculpture, 1995/2024

This work consists of two lightbox photographs that show differing views of Barbara Hepworth’s 1965 sculpture Three Personages ­– a work purchased by Jim Ede for the Kettle’s Yard collection in 1969 and on permanent display in the house.

Yass’s work was originally created for the group exhibition Open House at Kettle’s Yard in 1995, for which nine artists were invited to make interventions in the Kettle’s Yard House. At the time, Yass said, ‘Jim Ede’s collection is an intricately arranged, gorgeously composed still life.’ Portrait: sculpture has been remade in 2024 for the Kettle’s Yard collection.

Three Personages is one of several works by Barbara Hepworth in the Kettle’s Yard collection. Jim Ede was late to acquire works by Hepworth, having missed the chance while they were living near each other in Hampstead in the 1930s. She chided him for this, writing in answer to his enquiry about available works, ‘In all the years I knew you […] you never appeared to be very much interested in my carvings’. Making up for lost opportunities, Ede purchased Three Personages in 1969. It arrived at Kettle’s Yard from St Ives on the back seat of a car, wrapped in cotton wool.

The commission and acquisition is generously supported by the Porthmeor Fund and recognises a legacy received from Elisabeth Swan, Jim and Helen Ede’s elder daughter, in 2016.