EDWARD BURRA | Flowers in a Bar

Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, London
Private Collection, U.K.

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: A Complete Catalogue, Phaidon, Oxford, 1985, cat. no.225, illustrated.

The sheet is sound and appears to be laid down. There are Artist's pinholes in the corners. The edges may be slightly trimmed to the board. There is a tiny surface scratch to the woman's face on the left, and two small scratches to the right of the green bottle, and a small spot of craquelure to the jar in the centre with an associated minute loss. There is a horizontal line of rubbing at the extreme upper edge, consistent with frame abrasion. There are a few isolated media marks but generally the work is in good overall condition with strong colours throughout. Held under glass in a painted composition frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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'I prefer drinking in a saloon I loathe drinking at home unless its people I know very well & dont have to make an effort'. (Edward Burra, letter to his sister, 1953, quoted in Jane Stevenson, Edward Burra: Twentieth-Century Eye, Random House, London, 2007, p.321).

Edward Burra much enjoyed spending long, shapeless afternoons smoking and drinking in bars. The atmosphere and cast of characters they attracted appealed far greater to Burra's sensibilities than the company to be found in gentleman's clubs or high society parties. In the fifties, he spent an increasing amount of time in private-club licenses, very different institutions from the 'gentleman's clubs' he loathed, which emerged in London to get around the strict licensing laws operating at the time, when pubs shut at three in the afternoon and did not reopen until seven. Burra was invariably drawn to life on the margins, and his work frequently depicts those people and places outside the realms of respectability. He revelled in the presence of sailors, street traders, dancers and prostitutes and in the bawdiness of music and dance halls, cafés and bars.

The mood of Burra's pictures can be dark and sinister but also amusing, mischievous and ironic. Such sentiments are evoked in Flowers in a Bar, in which Burra transforms a common bar scene with his distinct aura of the fantastic. The flowers in the centre are the initial focal point, brightly rendered in contrast to their bleaker surroundings. Their position next to the jar of pickled eggs is a humorous and original juxtaposition, typical of Burra who delighted in the quality of strangeness to be found in everyday things. On the other side of the bar, faces loom large and close to the picture surface, a technique Burra often employed – their appearance surreal and somewhat unsettling. Behind the bar stands a busty, dour looking barmaid and in the background a sinister, ghostly looking figure sits alone, hat pulled low across his eyes. It is a motley gathering of characters and the detail he pays to them and their surroundings results in a highly compelling work.

The period in which Burra painted Flowers in a Bar coincided with a renewed sense of humour and zest for life after the horrors of the Second World War, reflected in his works of the 40s which are imbued with a sense of tragedy. There was also significant change in his domestic life, the Burra family deciding to move from their lifelong home, Springfield Lodge – a large Victorian house – to Chapel House in Rye in 1953, which was more practical for them. These new circumstances appear to have led to a new direction in Burra's work; until the late 40s, almost all his paintings represented people in their environment, but now there was a gradual shift of interest to landscape and inanimate objects. This places Flowers in a Bar in an interesting period; while still figurative the focus on the flowers may hint to the new course Burra was heading, committing himself from 1955-57 nearly exclusively to semi-abstract flower paintings and a series of hyper-realist still-life work.