Edward Burra 1905-1976

London, Tate Gallery, Edward Burra, May - July 1973, no.119.

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Phaidon, Oxford, 1985, no.308, illustrated.

Painted in 1964-5.
Street markets, like bars, shops and cafes, were a subject that occupied Burra from his earliest works, with numerous examples, such as Market Day (Private Collection) and French Scene (Private Collection) from 1925-25, through Saturday Market (Private Collection) of 1932 and right up to the mid 1960s when The Market was painted. The varied interpretations that he made of the subject allows speculation as to why they held such fascination, and it seems reasonable to conclude that it allowed him to draw together several strands of his interests into a single image.

The interaction of large groups of figures, frequently extremely disparate in age, race and social standing, was easily achievable within the market setting, with the added bonus that Burra could fill the scene with the fruits and vegetables that in some shape or other are such a key element of his entire oeuvre. In The Market, the contrast between the variety and lusciousness of the produce displayed on the stalls and the darkness and anonymity of the figures is very marked, the produce in fact appearing in some ways more real than the people. This contrast is also seen in Vegetable Stall (Private Collection) of the same year, and is very much in accordance with the artist’s own nebulous explanation of why the figures in his later paintings seemed to become more and more hazy and translucent – as you get older, you see through people more. Of the crowd meandering through the heavily laden stalls, only the vendors seem to display discernible life and characters, the wandering shoppers falling into a mass of heavily stylised figures and features that make them more like ghosts than people.