Kettle's Yard anew - a sense of space

I managed to make a proper visit to Kettle's Yard in Cambridge this month,  with its light-filled new galleries and Education wing, reopened in February after  several years' closure for the extensive building programme.  The House holds Jim Ede's personal collection of art as he wished to see it among his books and furniture in his daily life.  The house itself seemed twice as large as I recalled from  memories of long ago visits, and while I was happy to meet again favourite pieces in the  collection, very many paintings, sculptures, textiles and objects somehow looked entirely new.  One happy rediscovery was a pencil drawing by Elisabeth Vellacott, an artist of great subtlety, whose work only began to be appreciated in the 1960s.   These two images give some impression of the range and quality of her work.

"Vestigial Room"   Elisabeth Vellacott,   Photo the Arts Council collection, © the artist's estate 

This pencil drawing had stayed with me for its wonderful sense of depth achieved with such simplicity, and it was Jim Ede's first purchase of her work. 

"Bare Trees and Hills"  c. 1960   Elisabeth Vellacott  (possibly drawn near Llanthony, Wales)

©  Kettle's Yard and the artist's estate

In the galleries themselves is Subject, five sculptures by Anthony Gormley, which I was keen to see.  The star of this for me was "Infinite Cube II", which simply does not translate to a flat image, even in this enlarged section.  'Alice-through-the-looking-glass' style, you walk around a mirrored "three dimensional cube" of a thousand tiny lights, "with the possibility of infinite expansion" in which you lose yourself.  

Infinite cube II, 2018  © Anthony Gormley

It was only in recollecting the visit to House and Gallery, that I realised that both Vellacott and Gormley in different ways gave me that wonderful sense of a space into which you were drawn;  always a mark of the best artists.