Between 1917 and 1919, Jim Ede travelled around India whilst doing military service in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers. In his unpublished memoir (1946) he reflected that this moment had the ‘most reverberations of any period’ of his life. These reverberations are explored in the Jim Ede and India display in the Edlis Neeson Research Space. Here you can also pick up a map of objects in the Kettle’s Yard House that bring to life the entangled histories of South Asia, Kettle’s Yard, and Jim and Helen Ede.
Once back in England, Jim Ede stayed connected to South Asia. During the 1930s, when he was back in London working as a curator at Tate, he was exposed to a wide network of Indian artists and scholars. Jim and Helen Ede regularly hosted people at their Hampstead home, 1 Elm Row, including Indian classical dancer Uday Shankar and Gertrude Emerson Sen, a scholar of South Asia.
Jim Ede and India relates this history through rare archival documents, photographs, letters and artworks, while the map shows how it unfolds in the home of Jim and Helen Ede.