- 52
Edward Burra 1905-1976
Estimate
30,000 - 40,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Edward Burra
- still life with fruit and skull
- stamped with signature
- ink, watercolour and gouache
- 80 by 87.5cm., 31½ by 34½in.
Provenance
Alex Reid and Lefevre, London
Sir Frederick Gibberd, London
Lefevre Gallery, London
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 3rd July 2002, lot 296, whence purchased by the present owner
Exhibited
London, Lefevre Gallery, Watercolours by Edward Burra, 1965, no.13, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.
Literature
Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Phaidon, Oxford, 1985, no.313, illustrated.
Catalogue Note
Executed circa 1964-5.
Burra’s art is in many ways one of the most eccentric manifestations of the catholicity of taste that was exhibited by British artists in the 1920s and 1930s. Within his oeuvre we see elements of mainstream surrealism and abstraction, but it is treated to his own particular distillation, via his interest in all that was bizarre or unusual.
Burra’s art is in many ways one of the most eccentric manifestations of the catholicity of taste that was exhibited by British artists in the 1920s and 1930s. Within his oeuvre we see elements of mainstream surrealism and abstraction, but it is treated to his own particular distillation, via his interest in all that was bizarre or unusual.
This element of his work is one which he retains right to the last, and in the present painting the sense of the macabre is clearly evident. Areas of intense flat colour throw the objects into sharp relief, and each of these, from the skull leering at the viewer to the ridged gourds, has a curious animate quality.