Edward Burra

Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, London, 1973
Acquired by the mother of the present owner circa 1980, and thence by descent

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Phaidon Press Ltd, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.172, illustrated (as Still Life in a Landscape).

The sheet is fully laid down onto a backing card. The sheet appears sound. There is a pinhole at each of the upper corners, thought to be inkeeping with the artist's working method, and only visible when viewed unframed. The edges of the sheet are slightly uneven at each of the four corners, thought to be inkeeping with the artist's materials. There is a scuff to the sheet at the bottom right corner, an area of rubbing to the extreme lower left corner, and a tiny old tear at the centre of the lower horizontal edge. There are some very fine lines of craquelure apparent to the darker pigment of the yellow fruit on the left. There are some light scratch marks in the lower left corner, with two further scuffs in the nearby gray pigment, and one to the shoe. There is a thin diagonal line of rubbing to the bottom of the bowl and the tip of the shoe. There is some very slight discolouration to the sheet apparent around the edges of the work. There are a few very light specks of surface dirt. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in very good overall condition. The work is presented in a painted wooden frame with a fabric slip, held under glass. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

'So highly evolved has become his power of endowing inanimate objects with the quality of mysterious threat that human beings have become less and less necessary features of his art.' John Rothenstein, Edward Burra, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1973, p.35.

Burra, perhaps more so than any other artist, is a master of the strange and the sinister. Whilst this is overt in such masterpieces as Dancing Skeletons (1934, Tate) or Death and the Soldiers (1942-3, sold in these rooms, 10th December 2013, for £518,500), it is perhaps even more quietly unsettling in those works in which he shows us the uncanny in the everyday, where we least expect to encounter it. Burra's early work featured the seedy underside of life in Mediterranean cities, Harlem, New York and Boston, before focussing on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Turning then to still-life and landscape, he produced some of the most original and almost surreal works within these traditional genres in the history of art. 

At the centre of the work stands a bowl laden with luscious fruit, a typical feature of the still-life, favoured by artists from the Dutch Masters to Cézanne. But these are no ordinary apples and pears: plump and voluptuous, they glow with such a rich intensity that they appear over-ripe, even rotting. A single berry sits enticingly in the curve of a spoon, yet like the other fruit it is ever so slightly too vivid, even alarmingly so. Further evidence of an abundant harvest can be found in the nuts piled high before autumnal fields, however their impending destruction is implied by a pen-knife with such an exquisitely curved blade that it is positively menacing. Decay dominates: surrounding this strange bounty we find a cracked mug, tarnished cutlery, and a single broken-down boot. Most surreal of all are the pair of smiling teeth, lips pulled back in an unsettling grin to reveal chipped teeth: a typically bizarre Burra twist, this disembodied detail is both isolated yet all-too-human, reminding us of the artist's darkly satirical humour. 

The setting of the still-life adds to the overarching sense of foreboding: it seems to sit on the edge of a deserted street, behind which looms the shadowy recesses of an empty building, under heavily clouded skies. The sense is of a town deserted, as its final inhabitant, an elusive and cloaked figure, slinks off in the distance. As Burra once commented to John Rothenstein:  'Everything looks menacing; I’m always expecting something calamitous to happen' (John Rothenstein,  Edward Burra, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1973, p.35). Uniquely inventive as always, Burra has created a very modern vanitas, lacing a scene of apparent superabundance with unease.