Edward Burra

The Lefevre Gallery, London
Private Collection

Bradford, City of Bradford Art Gallery, 1958, no.934;
London, Tate Gallery, Edward Burra, 23th May-8th July 1973, no.99.

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: The Complete Catalogue, Oxford, 1985, no.246, illustrated.

The sheet is sound. There is an old pinhole in the upper right corner otherwise in good original condition with strong colours throughout. Held in a simple gilt frame under glass; unexamined out of frame. If you have any further queries, please call the 20th Century British Art department on +44 (0) 207 293 5575.
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Executed in 1956.

Still life was a new genre for Burra in the 1950s, and one which he took on with great aplomb. In the context of the theatrical, emotional and fantastical subject matter of the preceding decades, these still lifes must have appeared incredibly fresh and striking. David Sylvester captured the power of the works in a review of Burra's 1957 exhibition at Lefevre Gallery in the New Statesman on 25^th May 1957 which described the 'drama in the flowerpieces... perhaps the most pungent thing Burra has ever given us... they are more vividly, more intensely, striking and disturbing, precisely because they need nothing other than their spiky shapes and clashing colours to make them so.' (Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: The Complete Catalogue, Oxford, 1985, p.73).

Burra's own description of the still lifes in the 1957 exhibition as 'All flowers and still lifes. All sweetness and light' in a letter to Conrad Aiken dated February 1957, sounds distinctly tongue in cheek from a man who described the dramatic nature of all his work to John Rothenstein. Rothenstein recalled Burra's words, ''Everything,' he said to me, ' looks menacing; I'm always expecting something calamitous to happen.' Rothenstein's perception of 'a dramatic and sinister ambience' in the still lifes conveys the subtle impact they had on contemporary audiences. (John Rothenstein, Edward Burra, Tate Gallery, London, 1973, p.35).

Please also see the catalogue note to lot 54.