Edward Burra

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owners

London, Hayward Gallery, Edward Burra, August – September 1985, cat. no.113, illustrated pl.23.

 

The following condition report has been compiled by the paper conservator and restorer, Jane McAusland Support This large watercolour is on a sheet of wove paper, which is probably laid onto a card. Artist pinholes show at the corners. The condition is good. Medium The medium is fresh, bright and unfaded and in a good condition. Note: This work was viewed behind glass and outside studio conditions. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 5381 if you have any queries regarding this picture.
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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, exh.cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1973, p.35).

In contrast to much of his fantastical imagery, Burra's still lifes were depicted from life, and The Blue Striped Shirt is depicted in great detail. There is no doubting the influence of seventeenth-century still life painting when looking at the close attention to detail and focus on surface texture. The highly reflective and hard surface of the tureen is in total contrast to the soft poplin of the crumpled shirt on which it sits, and helps create a tension within the image that gives great impact to the whole, and imbues these apparently disparate objects with a quality of surrealism every bit as unsettling as Burra's more fanciful imagery.