It has taken me longer than it should to read Laura Freeman’s totally admirable and beautifully written book about Jim Ede – Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle’s Yard Artists. She does not pretend that Ede was better than he was: a bit disorganised, but totally passionate about art of his time in contrast to the Tate as it was in the 1920s and 1930s when he tried so hard and totally failed to persuade them to collect the artists he was having to supper in his Hampstead house in Elm Row (it surely ought to have a blue plaque). He was obviously charming, sometimes a bit wilfully naive and absolutely determined as a collector and organiser of his domestic environment. She conveys all this so clearly, no word misplaced.

Oh, and by the way, the book is very beautifully produced, as it should be, but it doesn’t say who designed it.