Edward Burra

The Leicester Galleries, London, where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill in 1947 for £65.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

London, Leicester Galleries, (1) Tissue Pictures by Beldy (2) Pictures by Edward J Burra, May - June 1932, cat. no.63;
London, The Leicester Galleries, Pictures by Edward Burra/ Recent Paintings by Claude Rogers/ Modern Etchings and Lithographs by French and Foreign Artists, June 1947, cat. no.8;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Catalogue of Part of a Collection of Oil Paintings, Water Colours, Drawings and Sculpture Belonging to W. A. Evill, Esq., December 1947 - February 1948, cat. no.25 (as The Common Staircase);
London, The Tate Gallery, Contemporary Art Society, The Private Collector, 23rd March - 23rd April 1950, cat. no.22;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part IV- section 3) cat. no.7 (as The Comman Man [sic]);
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.13 (as The Common Man).

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra Complete Catalogue, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.44.

The colours are slightly less yellow than the catalogue illustration suggests. Original canvas. There are one or two isolated very early faint signs of craquelure, including to the lamp and the woman's stomach lower right, which are only visible upon close inspection. There is a tiny speck of lifting paint to the shoulder of the man lower left. Otherwise the work is in excellent original condition, clean and ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals an uneven varnish which makes the reading difficult to interpret. There are a few isolated specks of retouching to the background, to one or two places on the central figures and to the window ledge, which are old and may be in the artist's hand. Held under glass in a wood veneer frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 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.
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The following work has been requested by Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, to be included in their forthcoming exhibition, Edward Burra, 22nd October 2011 to 19th February 2012, and will be included in the new monograph by Simon Martin to be published by Lund Humphries.

Illuminated by the otherworldly glow of a single gas lamp, The Common Stair presents four of Burra's most intriguing characters and immediately belies his fascination with the heady French Bohemian underworld at the time. Leaning nonchalantly on the iron window railing, a voluptuous lady of 'ilfame' draws heavily on her cigarette whilst her effeminate companion, bathed in eerie blue light, surreptitiously steals some freshly cleaned laundry. In the background, two men pass on the staircase, on their way to and from a 'common' visit to the top floor. As Burra's best friend Billy Chappell aptly explained, in the 1920s 'sexual ambiguity was the rule. Sexual promiscuity and sexual aberration the mode' (William Chappell, ed., Well dearie! The Letters of Edward Burra, Gordon Fraser, London, 1985, p.27).         

Having first visited Bordighera on the Italian Riviera at the age of 20 in 1925, Burra had dreamt of the South of France and on receiving the proceeds from his first major sale (for three paintings sold to Hugh Blaker, see The Evill/Frost Collection, Sale II, Ladies on the Riviera, lot 117) at the age of 22, he immediately declared '...I think of going to Toulon Nice Valencure Cassis Cannes and Marsailles [sic]...' (quoted in Jane Stevenson, Edward Burra: Twentieth Century Eye, Jonathan Cape, London 2007, p.151). His desire was fulfilled in September 1927 when he first travelled to the South with Billy Chappell. Lured into the intoxicating world of bars, theatres, music halls and café cabarets, Burra's experiences in Paris and amongst the eclectic crowds in the South of France had a fundamental impact on the direction of his art in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Having already invented most of the protagonists in his mind from his voracious uptake of popular magazines and films, he now spent hours sitting in cafés and bars soaking up the atmosphere and observing the acute idiosyncrasies of the passing crowds. 

In September 1928, Burra had been in Toulon staying at the Hotel du Port et des Négociants, spending much of his time at the Café de la Rade and Raymond's Bar. The following year, he painted Balcony, Toulon (1929, oil on canvas, Private Collection, fig. 1), encapsulating the alluring yet simultaneously sinister characters he had encountered and he depicts them sitting in the sun having tea with the suspicious air that something unlawful is about to take place. Executed in the same year, The Common Stair provides Burra's complementary vision of the nocturnal activities in this same city, the curious flickering glow of the gas light emphasising the unsleeping nature of a bustling port. Indeed, both Balcony, Toulon and The Common Stair share the same glazed wall tiles and it is not inconceivable that The Common Stair depicts the staircase at the back of the Hotel du Port et des Negociants winding up to the Balcony. As such, in giving both day-time and night-time perspectives, Balcony, Toulon and The Common Stair offer Burra's most unique and updated versions of the 18^th century conversation piece.

The Common Stair also recalls Burra's knowledge and understanding of contemporary European art, notably the work of George Grosz, and as his friend Barbara Ker-Seymer remembers, 'we also loved the terrible brothel scenes. These drawings were very like the German films we went to, for instance 'Joyless Street' in which Greta Garbo was reduced to going to a brothel and becoming a prostitute' (Bar Ker-Seymer, quoted in M. Kay Flavell, George Grosz: A Biography, New Haven and London, 1988, p.53). Moreover, like Balcony, Toulon, The Common Stair is highly significant in terms of medium as it is one of around only 10 surviving oil paintings by the artist, all dating around 1927 - 1931. The reasons for the rarity of oil within his oeuvre have been much debated although as Andrew Causey has surmised, it is less likely to be due to his health making painting in oil difficult, or that the public did not like his work in oil, but rather more that he preferred the smooth brushless texture that was enabled by painting in watercolour (see Causey, op.cit, p.22).

We are grateful to Professor Jane Stevenson for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.