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January 1921. Ede had stained the floors and made curtains for two rooms in a rented flat near Paddington. 3 Yet, it was cold. Ede rationed the heating and Helen was miserable. Interceding, Ede's father bought, in Helen's name, a terraced house in Hampstead. This was home for three years while Ede, no longer dreaming of becoming an artist, advanced from Photographic Assistant at the National Gallery to Second Assistant at the Tate. 1 ELM ROW It was characteristic of Ede to smudge boundaries. Travelling, he took a favourite pillow and portable painting or sculpture. At home, he surrounded himself with artists in whose work he tried to interest galleries. At the Tate, he offered his own china and silver for use in the restaurant, and turned his office into a miniature art gallery. 4 In April 1926, Ede's makeshift office in the Tate's boardroom became a repository for the drawings, sculptures, tools, personal effects and papers of the French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. 5 The Tate's Director, Charles Aitken, deemed the arrival an encumbrance, the work itself 'very slight and rather mannered though clever'. 6 Ede felt differently. Surrounded by it over a period of months, he discovered the sinuous modelled beauty of Dancer (1913), the stillness and contained energy of carvings such as Red Stone Dancer (1913–14) and the rare 'swiftness and … certainty' of Gaudier-Brzeska's draughtsmanship. 7 When the Tate agreed to acquire only a few sculptures and drawings, Ede, assisted by his friend, the artist Edward McKnight Kauffer, bought the remainder for £60, and – without a car – transported it home. The details of the transaction do not bear scrutiny. Ede, however, would never cease to promote Gaudier- Brzeska's work or to use it creatively for the benefit of others. 8 The home to which Ede carried his bounty was 1 Elm Row, a four- storey, 18th-century house in Hampstead. By April 1925, when the family moved in, it was 'spic and span'. 9 In Ede's eyes it was a sanctuary. Throughout was 'an abiding sense of quiet', and on entering the garden there was 'the impression of entering a church, so sudden was the silence'. In the first-floor music room, which housed Helen's Bechstein grand piano, the floor shone 'like the back of an old fiddle' in the evenings, and 'street lights flickered through the vine leaves, making shadows on the white panels'. 10 Ede cherished this room's impact. Everyone gasped on first seeing it, and Ede vowed to his Aunt Maud, 'We must maintain that unconscious gasp.' 11 The visitors' book of 1 Elm Row registered the network of Ede's acquaintances. Every Sunday afternoon there was open house with ginger wine and shortbread. Supper parties might feature musical or literary performances, and guests included writers, musicians, artists, architects, actors, dancers, choreographers, curators, collectors, publishers and politicians. Ede's sphere of contacts widened with his trips to Paris, at least annually on Tate business, such that Braque and Bonnard would visit when in London. Regular guests included the 3 Freeman, p.30. 4 Ede, 'A Way of Life,' interview with Waldemar Januszczak, BBC broadcast, Radio 3, 13 January 1984, quoted in Elizabeth Anne Fisher, 'Kettle's Yard: Anti-Museum: H.S. Ede, modernism and the experience of art', PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018, p.36. 5 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was killed in action in 1915; his partner, Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska died in 1926. 6 Charles Aitken, letter to the Treasury Solicitor, 4 October 1926, quoted in Roger Cole, Gaudier- Brzeska: Artist and Myth, Sansom & Co., Bristol,1995, p.203; Freeman, p.67. 7 Ede, A Way of Life: Kettle's Yard, Cambridge University Press, 1984 (2023 reprint), p.107. 8 Freeman, pp. 68–70. 9 Ede, letter to Aunt Maud, 8 April 1925, quoted in Freeman, p.43. 10 Ede, A Way of Life, pp. 58–59. 11 Ede, letter to Aunt Maud, 8 April 1925, quoted in Freeman, p.42. 7

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