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Ben introduced Ede to the painter Christopher Wood, who in 1928 gave him Landscape at Vence (1927), 18 and to the potter William Staite Murray, who gave him Heron (c.1928), a tall glazed jar, in thanks for an article published in Artwork. 19 When David Jones accidentally broke Heron, Murray mended it using gold, following the Japanese method of kintsugi. Further friendships were forged in Paris. In December 1927, Ede bought from Brâncuși his polished brass sculpture Poisson d'or (1924), which arrived from Paris in the suitcase of the dancer Lydia Sokolova and was placed, on its steel dish, on the dining table at Elm Row. Ede had first visited Brâncuși's studio in 1924. Dusted white with lime from the plastered walls, it resembled 'nature's workshop', filled with 'light, poise and rhythm in his carvings'. 20 Equally unforgettable was the home of Picasso's patron Eugenia Errázuriz, with its pale grey walls, bare polished floors, muslin curtains, mixture of simple objects, flowers, and Picasso's paintings 'not hanging on the walls, but living on the walls'. 21 Ede met Chagall, Picasso, van Gogh's sister-in-law, and Miró, who gave him Tic Tic (1927), a painting small enough to fit into his briefcase. Ede brokered the Tate's acquisition of its first works by van Gogh, as well as the first display there of a work by Picasso, although he failed to persuade the gallery to stage a Brâncuși exhibition. 22 Ede had a fraught relationship with the Tate authorities, who neither shared his enthusiasm for modern art nor excused his tendency to prioritise visits to artists, exhibitions, dealers and patrons over day- to-day administrative duties. Always delicate in health, Ede suffered various breakdowns and leaves of absence, during which (and also during office hours) he researched and wrote a biography of Gaudier- Brzeska based on the papers he had acquired. Published in 1930 in London, 23 it was reissued in New York under the title Savage Messiah (1931). INTERLUDE I – THE UNITED STATES In autumn 1931, Ede undertook a month-long, self-funded visit to the United States to visit some of the most significant public and private art collections. With the help of his uncle, now 'Organizing Director' at the Frick Collection in New York, he met influential figures such as Alfred Barr, Paul Sachs and Andrew Mellon and saw the collections of Albert C. Barnes, Duncan Phillips and Isabella Stewart Gardner, all of which shaped his own attitude towards collecting and displaying contemporary art. Least appealing was the Isabella Stewart Gardner collection at Fenway Court in Boston, described by Ede as 'an encrustation of disease': a plethora of paintings, sculptures and decorative objects, placed in 'incongruous' rooms, safeguarded by Gardner's stipulation that 'not an inkpot nor a chair shifted'. 24 Gardner had thought carefully about how her collection might be experienced, however; 18 Wood inscribed the painting 'For my friend / Jim Eade [sic]'. Fisher, p.46, fn.127. 19 H.S. Ede, 'Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson and William Staite Murray', Artwork Vol. 4 No. 16, Winter 1928, pp. 262–269. 20 H.S. Ede, 'Visiting Picasso and Brâncuși,' Cambridge Review, Vol. 91 No. 2197, 29 May 1970, pp. 178–179. 21 ibid., p.179. 22 Fisher, pp. 32–33. 23 H. Ede, A Life of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, London, Heinemann, 1930, in a limited edition of 350 copies. 24 H.S. Ede, 'A Visit To America (The Journey Out)' unpublished typescript, 1931, Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/EDE/4/3/1/1, quoted in Freeman, pp. 116–117. 9