Edward Burra

J. C. Thomson
Sir Robert Helpmann CBE, London, by 1973 
Private Collection, 1987
The Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño Family
Sale, Christie's London, 8th June 2007, lot 75, where acquired by the present owner

London, Tate, Edward Burra, 23rd May - 8th July 1973, cat. no.59;
London, Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, Edward Burra, 1st August - 29th September 1985, cat. no.95, p.119, illustrated p.39, pl.19;
London, Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, An Exhibition of Works by Edward Burra (1905-1976), 4th November - 18th December 1987, cat. no.10, illustrated p.23.

John Rothenstein, Edward Burra, Penguin Modern Painters, London, 1945, illustrated pl.21;
Andrew Causey, Edward Burra, Complete Catalogue, Phaidon, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.141, illustrated p.142.

The sheet has been laid down on to the board at the edges, which has in turn been secured to a supportive wooden frame with wooden dowel pegs. These have pushed into the sheet at the corners. In the lower left corner there is a resultant, tiny tear. The edges of the sheet are slightly unevenly cut. There are artist's pinholes visible in all four corners. The sheet undulates in places; this is particularly pronounced above the the lower edge and below the upper edge. This is in keeping with the artist's technique and medium. There is a 2 cm tear in the lower left corner, approximately 8cm above the extreme lower left corner. There are a small number of light scratches to the surface, in particular one running vertically along the trunk of the right hand tree, only visible upon very close inspection. There is some abrasion to the edges, particularly along the upper edge, lower left corner and the lower edge, not visible in the present mount. Subject to the above the work is in overall very good condition. The work is held behind glass in a simple carved and gilt wooden frame, decorated with a canvas mount. Please telephone the department on +44 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
"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."

Foreign lands tempted Burra. His first sorties into Europe were somewhat tame. He generally was with his family or friends, and to some extent, those that accompanied him kept him safe. However, as he grew up, Burra was prone to disappear from the parental home on the outskirts of Rye, where he lived for the first fifty years of his life, and set out on his travels without any prior announcement. His forays are not well documented and his destinations may not all be known. However, we do know that Burra first visited Spain in April 1933. This ignited a life-long affection for the country’s art, literature and culture. He used the Hugo system to master its language and briefly considered moving there permanently. But he could not avoid the violence of the civil strife. The summary murders and executions carried out by both sides led him away from depicting café society towards troubles that were so shocking and cruel. Burra fled Spain in haste and some disarray, in June 1936, just before the start of the Civil War. 

The following year he returned to America. It is not certain how often he went to the United States. The Harlem studies are certainly the consequence of a visit to New York in 1934. However, on this visit, some three years later, he was staying with his friends Conrad and Mary Aiken. The party also travelled to Mexico and here Burra’s intransigence came near to ending him. Carousing with the Aikens and their host, Malcolm Lowry, would have challenged the constitution of a gladiator, and so sickly Burra had no chance. Stricken, he left Mexico to recuperate in the States before limping back to Britain.

These two ill-fated trips had an immediate and radical effect upon his work. From them came burning colours that startle, contrast and shriek and imagery that was turned inside out, and reshaped, to give Burra’s art a second birth. From the late 1930s, his art was marked by a graver note. In place of frivolous satire, tragedy became the prevailing theme. His imagery, though charged with menace, retained the bizarre, macabre humour of his earlier work.

Landscape with Red Wheels is dated 1937-1939 by Andrew Causey in his catalogue raisonné, although Professor Jane Stevenson has questioned this specification. It was certainly in existence by 1942 as it was shown at the Redfern Gallery but whether it pre- or post-dates the outbreak of war is perhaps uncertain. Nevertheless, it is one of the earliest examples of Burra’s return to landscape, which he had scarcely touched for ten years, and is a scene of decayed stone buildings, so forgotten that their purpose can no longer be discerned. Gnarled, leafless trees have taken root in the ancient structures, prising them apart. Four red wheels lean abandoned against the ruins. There is no distinction in the hue between these wheels and the red stones upon which they rest. This implies that they are also remnants of the same edifice. Amongst this deserted and chilling landscape, a solitary figure walks, hooded and cloaked in black. 

The picture clearly illustrates the impact Spain and Mexico had on Burra. As with so many of the works executed in the years following the trips, the palette is burnt and blistered. The ruined buildings may have been inspired by the archeology of Cuernavaca. Burra had spent most of his time in Mexico in this city, which has a sizable Aztec pyramid and associated structures whose ruins still stand. As well as this, the rubble of contemporary buildings torn apart by modern warfare cannot have been far from his thoughts. Blown-up and burnt-out buildings affected him strongly. Up to that point his art had always been urban. He loved inner cities and ports, the complexities of civilisation. He was attracted to slums, to human life adapting and making-do in decayed, un-cared-for buildings, but as his wartime letters reveal, he passionately loathed bombed-out ruins.

In 1937 William Gaunt published Bandits in a Landscape, on painters from Caravaggio to Delacroix. Burra spent a great deal of time studying these artists and may well have owned a copy. One topic that Gaunt’s book treats extensively is the 18th century’s fascination with ruins. Gaunt suggests that the painters he studies were expressing a kind of despair at human achievement. The same may well be true of Burra. The Spanish Civil War horrified him, the outbreak of the Second World War confirmed his despair. William Chappell, a lifelong friend of the Artist, wrote of his personality: ‘… his nature was full of barriers and barricades. Those who were fairly intimate with him learnt never to attempt to overthrow them. Anything he felt strongly about such as his work – he would not discuss’ (William Chappell quoted in Angus Stewart, Edward Burra, (exh. cat.), Olympia Fine Art, London, 2001, p.3). In Burra’s work, however, he has left an autobiography. Burra’s paintings from the late 1930s to early 1950s are suffused with grief, terror and a struggle to surmount desolation. So, while Burra might have been tight-lipped, his brush spoke volumes.