Edward Burra

Alex Reid & Lefevre, London, where acquired by the present owner in 1971

Arts Council of Great Britain, British Painting 1925-1950, 1951, cat. no.6, illustrated pl.X;
Paris, Galerie Creuze, La Peinture Britannique Contemporaine, October 1957, cat. no.20;
London, Alex Reid & Lefevre, Edward Burra: The Early Years (1923-1950), 7th October - 30th October 1971, cat. no.19.

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Phaidon, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.165, illustrated.

The following condition report has been prepared by Jane McAusland ACR FIIC: Support This large watercolour is on a sheet of wove paper attached at the edges to a conservation board. The centre of the sheet appears to have been damaged in the past, probably by cut glass, and there appear to be some scratches and probably a couple of supported cuts and some retouching. This damage is not particularly intrusive. There are a few small edge creases. Otherwise the condition of the sheet is good. Medium The medium is very fresh, bright and unfaded and in an excellent condition. Note: This work was viewed outside studio conditions. Please contact the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

For a painter so often identified with an urban environment, landscape is a perhaps surprisingly constant and important part of Burra's oeuvre. Throughout his life he returned to it again and again, both as a subject in its own right, or as the setting for more narrative paintings. Whilst Burra himself preferred not to elaborate on the content of his paintings, the subtlety and empathy that he demonstrates in his rendering of landscape is a clear indicator of how it is not only a backdrop for Burra, but an integral part of his aim to imbue his work with an atmosphere so particular that few of his contemporaries can rival him.

This is particularly true in the paintings of the later 1930s and early 1940s. As the shadow of war descended first on mainland Europe and then Britain, we see Burra repeatedly making the setting of his paintings an equal actor in the drama being played out by the figures that populate his paintings. The small group of paintings that he produced from around 1941 until the end of WWII develop this further. In works such as Blasted Oak (Arts Council Collection) of 1942, we begin to feel that the land itself is alive, the trees, rocks and grasses all exhibit a quietly pulsing energy like some sleeping leviathan. As such, Burra was working within the current that was being seen across much of the art being produced in Britain at that time. The enforced isolation of the war and the threat of invasion fed an iconography that drew past and present together, and the timeless and vital presence of the land itself as a key factor in the national identity was a theme that artists, writers, poets and film-makers all treated. Burra could be placed alongside contemporaries such as John Minton in exploring such a motif. However, Burra is not content to rest with this Palmer-esque sylvan fancy, bringing, as we might expect, a sly undercurrent of meaning to his paintings. In some, such as The Cabbage Harvest (Government Art Collection) of 1943-45 the landscape is autumnal in tone, the huge and fecund vegetables of the title being harvested by figures whose dress hints at soldiers' fatigues. In concert with the dry and tired look of the land, perhaps we are seeing the toll taken to maintain the war effort. In The Road we are presented with three figures who peer through an archway of gnarled and twisted branches and roots to a landscape beyond. One can hardly avoid feeling that there is at least a passing reference to Graham Sutherland, whose Entrance to a Lane series of paintings of the immediately pre-war period presented the exact reverse of such an image. With Sutherland we enter the gloom and dankness of the lane, maybe here Burra is gazing out the other end. But to what?

A long country lane stretches straight into the distance before it gently curves out of sight. Initially, the landscape beyond appears welcoming and reassuringly familiar. However, the two farmsteads we can see show the unmistakable air of neglect. To the left we can see only darkness and uncertainty, the building having the same feeling found in period images of those whose windows had been blown through in air raids. A figure tentatively peers round the door, but there is little sense of welcome here. Across the road, the kitchen garden of the farm looks ravaged and barren, even the water-butt lying prone among the weeds. In the road itself two figures walk, but when we look closely one appears swathed in cares, perhaps mourning, whilst beyond a figure barefoot and ragged could be on the verge of madness. With many friends in the dance and theatre worlds, Burra would surely have been familiar with John Gielgud's celebrated 1942 touring production of Macbeth, with Gielgud and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Macbeth and his wife, the sets and costumes designed by John Minton and Michael Ayrton. To a contemporary audience, it must surely be likely that Burra's three figures struck a resonance with Shakespeare's Three Witches. If so, their gift for seeing the future has gone somewhat awry. Burra had explored the idea of a mythic figure dropped into the everyday in 1944 in his designs for the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals, a staple of the Royal Ballet repertory until 1950. Whilst here it is therefore perhaps possible to read Burra looking into the post-war future with a certain trepidation, the theme of the land suffering under the hand of man would become even more pronounced in his work in the decades to follow.