Portraits of Place
5 November 2016 – 15 January 2017 at The Heong Gallery
This exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, collages and works on paper by leading twentieth and twenty-first century artists who have been inspired to make artworks that respond to the places in which they have lived and worked.
The exhibition includes an array of intimate depictions of British landscapes from the Kettle’s Yard Collection, ranging from early paintings of Cumberland and Cornwall by Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis, to evocative textual and material compositions that engage with ‘place’ by Ian Hamilton Finlay. Selected collages, paintings and photographs responding to rural and urban sites by non-British artists such as Italo Valenti and Helen Frankenthaler are also on display.
The Kettle’s Yard Collection particularly highlights how artists have drawn on the emotional, visual and physical sensations of their engagement with ‘place’. Reflecting the continuity of artists’ engagement with this subject today, Portraits of Place also includes works by British artist Richard Long (b. 1945), lent by the artist. By gathering together and using materials such as natural forms, images, words, and employing and recording his own physical gestures, Long continues to respond to the feelings, scale and textures of places and journeys.
Curated by Rachel Rose Smith, Heong Gallery, and Jennifer Powell, Kettle’s Yard
Gallery
Photos by Paul Allitt
Celebrating 50 years as part of the University of Cambridge 1966-2016
See the work of 25 artists from the Kettle’s Yard Collection in nine places and spaces across Cambridge.
We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jim Ede’s gift of Kettle’s Yard to the University of Cambridge. Jim Ede, a writer and former curator at the Tate, created and opened Kettle’s Yard in 1957. In November 1966 Kettle’s Yard became a University of Cambridge museum. We are delighted to be working with old and new friends, in the university and city, who have generously collaborated with us to make exhibitions and displays.
Reflecting our support for contemporary artists, Lucy Steggals and Jesse Wine are creating new installations at the Museum of Cambridge and Arbury Community Centre.
The exhibitions are accompanied by a lively programme of events across many of the venues, including an anniversary lecture and free talks by students from the University of Cambridge’s History of Art Department.
All the exhibitions are free and no booking necessary unless stated otherwise. Find out more about the exhibitions using the links on the left.
Thank you
We are grateful to our exhibition partners and supporters:
The Festival of Ideas, Murray Edwards College, Wolfson College, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Museum of Cambridge, Art at the Alison Richard Building, Cambridge University Library, Arbury Community Centre, St John’s College, The Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, HEFCE, Cambridge City Council and the University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden.