A Special Year for Kettle’s Yard
2027 marks the 70th anniversary of Kettle’s Yard, and we will be celebrating with a year of brilliant exhibitions, events, and community projects.
The year will start with Christopher Wood: in love, opening on 13 February. This exhibition will take a deeper look at Christopher Wood, an artist central to the Kettle’s Yard collection, exploring his artistic life, and the creative and personal relationships that shaped his practice. In July a new exhibition by the celebrated contemporary artist Mona Hatoum opens. So much I want to say will include artwork from her rich and varied practice over four decades. Finally, our anniversary year will close with Miró’s Circus, an exhibition inspired by Joan Miró’s painting Tic Tic (1927) on display in the Kettle’s Yard house. Miró is regarded as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century.
Kettle’s Yard Director, Andrew Nairne says:
What a fantastic line up of exhibitions we have for 2027! As we celebrate 70 years of Kettle’s Yard, we are thrilled to be continuing this legacy into the future with exhibitions by Christopher Wood, Mona Hatoum and Joan Miró. All three artists offer remarkable, but contrasting, visions of how art can make us see the world differently. We hope you will make 2027 the year you visit (or revisit) Kettle’s Yard. We look forward to welcoming you!
Christopher Wood: in love
13 February – 27 June 2027
A central figure in the Kettle’s Yard collection, Christopher Wood (1901-1930) is considered one of the most remarkable artists to engage with modern forms of painting and drawing in Britain in the early 20th century. This major exhibition will celebrate Wood’s passionate pursuit of an artistic life alongside the creative and personal relationships that shaped his practice. Wood travelled widely across Europe and North Africa, meeting and learning from a glittering array of artists, writers and designers before his premature death at the age of 29.
The exhibition is curated by Inga Fraser and will be accompanied by an illustrated publication.
Mona Hatoum: So much I want to say
10 July – 24 October 2027
This exhibition will survey works spanning Mona Hatoum’s (b. 1952, Lebanon) varied and rich practice over four decades. Opening with her 1983 video So much I want to say, the exhibition will bring together artworks in different media, from installations to works on paper, that demonstrate Hatoum’s ability to elicit profound meaning from the transformation of ordinary materials. Extending into the domestic setting of the Kettle’s Yard house, the exhibition will feature works that reflect many of the core themes of Hatoum’s practice, including issues of conflict, displacement, vulnerability and control.
The exhibition is curated by Amy Tobin and will be accompanied by a new publication.
Miró’s Circus
13 November 2027 – 19 March 2028
This exhibition will explore the world of Joan Miró (1893-1983) and his exceptionally productive period from 1925 to 1932. Widely regarded as one of the leading figures of the Surrealist movement, his painting Tic Tic (1927) is a singular jewel in the Kettle’s Yard collection, given to Jim Ede by the artist. It is one in a series which Miró sketched in a notebook, now held in the artist’s archives in Barcelona. A century after the work was made, this exhibition will reunite Tic Tic with other paintings from the period to uncover Miró’s influences, ideas and techniques at this pivotal moment in his career. A major influence for Miró during this time – as for many of his contemporaries – was the spectacle of the circus. The works in this exhibition will capture the circus’s spirit of spontaneity and agility, as well as the frenetic energy shared by audiences in the arena.
An illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition. Miró’s Circus is curated by Inga Fraser and Matthew Gale.
70th Anniversary Highlights
Patrick Heron in the Kettle's Yard House
Patrick Heron’s (1920 – 1999) painting Christmas Eve: 1951 (1951) will be on special loan to the Kettle’s Yard house in 2027. Heron was long admired by Jim Ede, who expressed his desire to acquire a work for the Kettle’s Yard collection, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The display will be accompanied by an in-conversation event in celebration of a new Patrick Heron catalogue raisonné edited by Andrew Wilson.
The Ede Lecture
Dr Alice Correia will give a lecture on the work of the celebrated Indian artist, Avinash Chandra (1931 – 1991), in the Kettle’s Yard house. Moving to the UK from Delhi in 1956, Chandra was a close friend of Jim and Helen Ede, and five of his distinctive paintings are in the Kettle’s Yard Collection, with three now on display in the house.
Linder, Bower of Bliss: An Improper Architecture
Linder will revive her performance encompassing dance, costume, music, and a shifting soundscape which originally took place during Kettle’s Yard’s 2020 exhibition Linderism. Staged at Murray Edwards College, home of the Women’s Art Collection, this highly original multi-sensory experience subverts feminine archetypes and normative relationships.
70 for 70: Art & Objects in the Kettle’s Yard House
Over the course of 2027, 70 people, including celebrated artists, local school children and members of community groups, will each share an artwork or object from the Kettle’s Yard house and collection and describe why it is a favourite for them.
STAFFROOM 2.0: Kettle's Yard Staff Exhibition
Following the success of STAFFROOM in 2025, our staff exhibition returns for the anniversary year. This exhibition will showcase the talent and creative practices of our staff, presenting a selection of works across painting, drawing, photography, jewellery making, ceramics and more.
Studio 27
Inspired by Jim and Helen Ede’s dedication to championing creativity, the work of artists in Cambridge – from the young to the elderly – will take over the galleries for five days, alongside workshops, talks, music and more, in collaboration with local schools and community groups.
