Edward Burra

The Redfern Gallery, London, (as The Harbour), where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill January 1943 for £26.5.0, 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.60;
London, British Institute of Adult Education, (as The Harbour) (details untraced);
London, Leicester Galleries, A Selection of Pictures from the Collection of Wilfrid A. Evill, October 1952, cat. no.37 (as The Harbour);
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part IV- section 2) cat. no.3 (as Harbour Scene);
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, 1965, cat. no.14 (as Habour Scene).

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra Complete Catalogue, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.85 (as Harbour Scene).

The following condition report has been compiled by Jane McAusland FIIC, Conservator and Restorer of Art on Paper: Support Burra has used a strong, thick, wove paper to support this watercolour and gouache painting. The sheet shows undulations, which are mostly natural and the verso is a little stained. Otherwise the condition is good. Medium The condition of the medium is fresh, bright and unfaded, though there are some small losses to the surface of the pigment upper left towards the edge and in a few other places. Note: This work was viewed outside studio conditions. For enquiries about the present work please contact the department on +44 (0)20 7293 6424.
"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."

The following work has been requested by Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, to be included in their forthcoming exhibition, Edward Burra, from 22nd October 2011 to 19th February 2012, and will be included in the new monograph by Simon Martin to be published by Lund Humphries.

Executed in 1932, Tea-Leaves Overboard is a rare example in Burra's oeuvre at the time in depicting the British landscape. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Burra was obsessed with the hive of activity and extreme characters he had experienced in the bustling port towns of the South of France and in the same year as the present work, 1932, he was appropriately involved with the set designs for Constant Lambert's vivacious ballet, Rio Grande: A Day in a Southern Port. In contrast, the panoramic view combining the red brick terraced houses on the quayside and the rolling fields in the distance is distinctly English and although the exact location is unknown, it could certainly stem from Burra's experience of the Royal Military Canal which passed his hometown of Rye running from Seabrook in Kent to Cliff End in East Sussex.

With characteristic panache, Burra juxtaposes the quintessentially British quayside with the more shady figure of the bargee in the foreground, cigarette drooping from his lip, surreptitiously emptying his teapot, who appears to have walked off the set of one of Burra's more well-known images of the French Bohemian underworld such as The Common Stair (lot 1). Indeed, the combination in Tea-Leaves Overboard of English landscape with European thug, highlights the acute dichotomy in Burra's own life; on the one hand, he adored city life, travelling at any opportunity and the previous year, had been in Paris with Sophie Fedorovitch and in Toulon with Billy Chappell at the same time as Jean Cocteau , Desbordes, Gide and Tchelitchew. On the other hand, he always returned home to Springfield in Rye, a world away from the European beau-monde and a necessary antidote to the urban excesses he so enjoyed.

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