Private Collecting into Public Collection

Kettle’s Yard was the home of Jim and Helen Ede between 1957 and 1973, containing their collection of art, furniture, ceramics and other objects. The house and its contents were given to the University of Cambridge in 1966, after protracted negotiations, along with an endowment for their upkeep. For this session, we invite proposals for 20-minute papers that interrogate the intent, practicalities, appeal, ethics, politics, meanings and legacies of collections of twentieth-century art (and any associated buildings) that passed from private hands into the public domain between 1900 and 1999 in Britain and internationally. What are the challenges and opportunities created by their succession? What related ideas, institutions and structures follow from these twentieth-century inheritances, and how do they impact upon our work and thinking today?

Possible subjects and approaches may include:

Biographical studies of collectors of twentieth-century art, which may be informed by related disciplines and fields e.g. psychology, sociology, gender studies, theology and religious studies, queer theory and decolonial critique
Issues of conservation arising within non-standard museum environments, mixed displays or ‘working’ displays
Questions of access in non-standard museum environments
Chronologies and meanings of ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’, especially as defined in relation to contemporary audiences
Class distinctions, questions of heritage, wealth and privilege
Ethics of holding/ displaying/ deaccessioning collections or individual artworks and objects following research into provenance or attribution
Changing political signification of collections, architectures or items within a collection
Surrounding context as it impacts upon a collection and/or its reception, e.g. social, economic, architectural or environmental

Proposals for alternative formats, such as short films or responses from contemporary practitioners, may also be submitted.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Dr Inga Fraser, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, iaf27@cam.ac.uk

Naomi Polonsky, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, np505@cam.ac.uk