Magdalene Odundo DBE is one of the greatest ceramic artists working today. Her distinctive, burnished vessels are informed by a range of art and craft traditions from around the world.
This display marks 50 years since Odundo moved from Kenya to Cambridge to take an Art Foundation Course at Cambridge School of Art. Intending to study graphic design, Odundo soon switched her focus to ceramics, inspired by Zimbabwean-born pottery teacher, Zoë Ellison. Ellison encouraged Odundo in her first attempts at making and introduced her to a number of contemporary British studio potters.
Gold of The Great Steppe (28 September 2021 – 30 January 2022) will display an archaeological sensation, hundreds of outstanding gold artefacts recently discovered in the extraordinary ancient burial mounds built by the Saka people in East Kazakhstan.
Drawing from our rich holdings of paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics and sculpture, ‘Women: makers and muses’ is the first display in an on-going series highlighting work by women throughout the history of art and from across the globe.
A series of films made in response to the display in which curators offer further thoughts on featured artworks will be followed by a Q&A with Jane Munro and Rebecca Birrell.
Join Rebecca Roberts, Curator of Gold of the Great Steppe, for a spotlight talk in the exhibition, introducing key themes and highlight objects.
Join Fitzwilliam Museum Curator, Helen Ritchie, for a brief introduction (approx. 30 minutes) to Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge. Curated by ceramic artist Magdalene Odundo DBE, this display marks 50 years since Odundo moved from Kenya to Cambridge to study at Cambridge School of Art and brings together a selection of global collections from Cambridge collections with examples of her own unmistakeable work.
Please note these spotlight talks will take place at the Museum. Booking is free but necessary.
Empathy Objects is a new display of a series of artworks which have been created by our Open House artist in residence 2020/21, Enni-Kukka Tuomala, working with local community groups and residents of North Cambridge. The Empathy Objects will be on display around North Cambridge and the Kettle’s Yard House.
FREE, booking recommended to visit the objects in the House
Join us for a special live event to launch our new exhibition UNTITLED: Art on the conditions of our time. Commissioned by Kettle’s Yard, artist Barby Asante’s new performance To Make Love is to Create Ourselves Over and Over Again: A Love Poem for Audre will be live streamed online from the Kettle’s Yard House.
Following the performance, the artist will be in-conversation with writer Lola Olufemi.
FREE, booking recommended
A twist of the hand is an exhibition of wall drawings informed by the use of pattern and colour in ancient Greece and Rome. Preserved architectural details, remnants of colour, geometric mosaics, and objects all serve as points of departure for the creation of new works, carefully sited among the Museum of Classical Archaeology’s cast collection. James Epps evokes the colourful worlds from which the ancient sculptures derive, inviting new relationships of pattern and colour.
Plants have been used in the beauty and fragrance industry for thousands of years, from ancient times up until the present day.
The exhibition features watercolours from the our exceptional botanical collection. Works include those by Nicolas Robert (1614–85), Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–70), Joseph von Plenck (1735–1807), Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) and Henriette Knip (1783–1842). They are displayed alongside a range of perfume vessels from ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as scent bottles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Touch is our first sense. Through touch we make art, stake a claim to what we own and those we love, express our faith, our belief, our anger. Touch is how we leave our mark and find our place in the world; touch is how we connect.
Drawing on works of art spanning four thousand years and from across the globe, this exhibition explores the fundamental role of touch in human experience, and offers new ways of looking.
