Edward Burra
Education Pack
Biography
Edward Burra was born in London in 1905 to
upper middle class parents. He spent most of his
life living at his family’s home in Playden, near
Rye, East Sussex.
He strongly disliked being described as a ‘disabled
painter’, but his life-long health problems (which
included chronic arthritis and a blood disease that
severely sapped his energy) may have contributed to his becoming an artist. His parents had
planned to send him to Eton, where he would
have received a deeply conventional and
conservative public school education, but due
to his illnesses he was educated at home, and
perhaps in this environment the imaginative and
creative sides of his personality were more able
to flourish. His family’s wealth meant that he
never had to worry much about earning a living.
He attended Chelsea Polytechnic (1921-3) and
the Royal College of Art (1923-5), where he met
the group of fellow students who were to remain
his close friends for the rest of his life.
He had his first solo exhibition at the age of 24 at
the Leicester Gallery, London in 1929. He went on
to exhibit widely in the U.K and abroad, establishing
an international reputation as a painter, and gaining
acclaim for his theatre designs.
A retrospective exhibition of his work was held
at the Tate Gallery in 1973. He died in hospital in
Hastings in October 1976 aged seventy-one.
Working method
Burra worked almost exclusively in the medium
of watercolour. His handling of the paint is
idiosyncratic, employing rich tones and dense,
vivid colour, rather than the fluid washes and
subtle colours more typical of watercolour.
He also had an individualistic way of working,
which involved painting flat on a tabletop, rather
than vertically at an easel. He may have worked
this way because he found it physically easier.
Although he spent a lot of time observing his
surroundings, he never made sketches from life,
but had a very good visual memory for the places
characters and situations that he chose as the
subject matter for his work.
He planned out his pictures in advance and then
‘filled in’ with colour, starting in the bottom righthand corner. Due to the translucency of watercolour it would have been very difficult to make
a major alteration to a composition once painting
had begun. Sometimes he laid down colours in
washes, each layer making the colour stronger.
He is known to have used his own spit to dilute
his paint!
The exhibition has divided Burra’s work into four
sections. Burra himself did not categorise his
work in this way, and frequently these categories
overlap, both in terms of date of production and
subject matter; his landscapes can be spooky, his
visions of modern urban life are often theatrical.
1: Modern Urban Life
Modern urban life was the theme of much of
Edward Burra’s work in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
In the years between the two world wars he
gained inspriation from travel to London, the U.S.,
France, Italy and Spain.
The vision of modern urban life reflected in his
paintings is inclusive and largely positive. It is also
(perhaps surprisingly for a man of his middle class
background, at this time) multicultural, and
encompasses all races, ages, sexualities and
types.
Although his family were wealthy, conventional
and respectable, Burra himself delighted in
alternative lifestyles, unorthodox and bizarre
characters, and the more disreputable and
Bohemian sides of life.
Burra has been described as an observer. He
loved to visit new places and soak up the sights
of unfamiliar environments and strange
characters. His regular visits to London enabled
him to keep in touch with his friends and their
lively social circle. He was an inveterate
gossip and his many letters to friends are full of
bitchy comments and observations. This sense of
nosiness and delight in the unusual pervades his
paintings of modern urban life.
In 1923 Burra was impressed by an exhibition of
William Roberts’ work which he saw at the Chenil
Gallery in London. Particularly inspirational were
Roberts’ paintings of people at leisure in cafés,
bars, the cinema and parks. Roberts’ stylised way
of painting was also an influence on Burra.
Burra’s paintings of urban life often combine
several vignettes rather than presenting a
straightforward depiction of a specific time and
place. This may be partly because most of his
paintings were painted from memory when he
returned to the U.K. He seems to have spent his
time abroad revelling in new experiences,
absorbing the exotic situations he found himself
in, and storing up memories for his return home.
Dockside Café, Marseilles, 1929, oil on canvas, 67.3 x 48.2 cm,
private collection
The many well-observed details in Burra’s
paintings give us clues to the hidden stories
behind the characters he depicts. Look closer
into any of his paintings of modern urban life
and you can piece together a narrative involving
the characters and situations he presents.
Dockside Café, Mareilles, is a good example. At
first sight it appears to be a conventional scene
showing sailors in a bar being served by two
barmaids. But look closer and you will see that
the young man in the pink sweater is actually
wearing ballet shoes, the sailor in the dark suit
appears to have plucked eyebrows and very
pretty eyelashes, both men are wearing ornate
rings on their fingers and the two barmaids have
heavy features and exaggerated make-up,
suggesting they are actually men in drag! This is
probably a gay bar, and not the macho, industrial
location that the title suggests.
Market Day, 1926
Watercolour on paper, 55.2 x 37.5 cm
Pallant House Gallery (on long-term loan from a private collection)
Market Day depicts a busy port secene, focusing on two black sailors on shore leave, dressed for a night
out and carrying their ‘ditty bags’. The painting captures the sense of confusion mixed with excitement on
arriving in a new place, and the attendant onslaught of foreign sights, smells and sounds. The image shows
Burra’s idea of what such an experience might be like. He didn’t encounter it for real until the following
year, when he visited the French ports of Marseilles and Toulon for the first time, so this image is probably
based on films he’d seen and books he’d read.
Key elements
• Exotic subject matter - a foreign city, unusual
fruits, vivid colours. The location is clearly not
England in the 1920s.
• Unrealistic perspective results in a compressed
picure space, with boats on the horizon almost
touching the fruit basket balanced on a woman’s
head. This adds to the picture’s sense of
confusion and liveliness.
• Rich tones and colours - reminiscent of
German ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’ artists such as
George Grosz and Otto Dix.
• Burra’s watercolour technique is unlike that
of any other artist. He applies the paint in
thick layers and the result is more like
tempera or even oil paint. He rarely creates
the fluid washes associated with watercolour,
and his colours are uncharacteristically vivid
and intense.
• Simplified shapes of buildings, bodies, boats
show the influence of Cubism and the artist
William Roberts’ work.
• Close observation is reserved for specific
details, like clothing and hair styles and the
varieties of exotic fruit, or for people’s
postures, such as the sailors’ confident stride
or the way the women are standing with their
legs out to trip up the sailors.
• Each sailor carries a ‘ditty bag’, which is the
name for a small bag in which a sailor keeps his
personal effects and small tools and equipment.
Marriage à la Mode, 1926
Watercolour on paper, 62.2 x 50.8 cm
Courtesy Lefevre Fine Art
William Hogarth’s painting, The Wedding of Stephen Beckingham and Mary Cox (1729) is the reference
point for this image, which Burra updates, giving it his own idiosyncratic treatment. His version is a
cynical comment on ‘marriages of convenience’, which in the sexually repressed atmosphere of
respectable, middle class England, must have been a fairly common occurrence. The painting is full of
humourous details and ‘double entendres’, suggesting, as is the case with many of Burra’s paintings of
urban life, that all is not what it seems. The implication is that the groom is gay and that the marriage is
taking place strictly for the sake of appearance.
Key elements
• The title translates as “fashionable
marriage” or “marriage in the current style”.
• The groom is standing in a rather effemi-
nate posture, with his right leg kicked out to
the side and a disinterested look on his face.
In contrast, the buxom bride is gripping the
stem of her bridal bouquet in a suggestively
phallic position.
• Although weddings are usually a cause for
celebration, the woman standing behind the
bridal couple is weeping, and from her
distraught expression they are not tears of joy.
Maybe she knows something we don’t.
• In Hogarth’s painting a pair of cherubs hover
above the married couple, holding a large
bouquet of flowers to signify fertility. Here,
however, wingless children float above the
couple, watering their floral headdresses with
a watering can and an atomiser (spray),
suggesting that this marriage will need all the
help it can get if it is to produce any offspring.
the picture, is a small group of anonymous
figures resembling a Greek chorus, who might
be commenting on the dramatic action.
• Sexuality is also hinted at by Burra’s depiction
• The stylised treatment of form is influenced
• The image has a theatrical air about it. The
• Some other examples of paintings dealing
of the flowers, which resemble female sexual
organs.
bridal couple and vicar are the actors taking
centre stage, and the red curtain at the top
right of the painting suggests the stage
curtains you would find in a proscenium
theatre. The congregation is the audience,
and just below the red curtain, looking into
by William Roberts, Legér and other artists
working in a cubist style.
with the theme of weddings or marriage
are The Arnolfini Marriage (1434) by Jan
van Eyck, Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1750) by
Thomas Gainsborough, The Wedding (1944)
by Marc Chagall and Mr and Mrs Clark and
Percy (1970-71) by David Hockney.
2: The Macabre
Given Edward Burra’s bizarre and subversive view
of modern urban life, it is no surprise that he
was also attracted to the grotesque, and tended
towards ‘gallows humour’. Indeed, his friend, the
poet Conrad Aiken said that ‘macabre’ was one of
Burra’s favourite words.
From the 1930’s onward his work increasingly
embraced dark subject matter. He was encouraged
in this by his links with Surrealism. Although Burra
never considered himself a Surrealist, his work was
included in the ‘International Surrealist Exhibition’
in London and ‘Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism’
at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, both
held in 1936.
The work of Surrealist artists such as Max Ernst,
Salvador Dali and Joan Miro also introduced him
to the technique of collage. Collage’s freedom to
combine disparate or incongruous images proved
liberating for Burra, and influenced his use of space
and subject matter, both of which became less
realistic, more fantastical.
Although Burra was not overtly political, he
cannot fail to have been affected by the dramatic
world events of the 1930’s. He first visited Spain
in 1933 and was impressed by all aspects of the
country’s culture. However his visits coincided with
the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War in 1936,
and he was hugely shocked to witness violence
at first hand. Conflict was to come even closer to
home with the entry of Britain into World War Two
in 1939. Images of death, evil and malevolence
populate Burra’s work from the 1930’s onwards.
It could be argued that another reason for Burra’s
obsession with the macabre was his own fragile
health. He was constantly aware of his relatively
tenuous grasp on life, and death was for him an
ever present reality (indeed his sister Betsy had
died of meningitis in 1929, aged only eleven). In
such circumstances, focusing on death can be a
way of neutralising its power - literally laughing
in its face. Burra’s images may be frightening or
sinister, but they also possess much humour.
The Straw Man, 1963, watercolour on paper, 78.8 x 111.8 cm,
Pallant House Gallery (on long-term loan from a private collector)
Not much is known about Edward Burra’s religious
beliefs, but he did have an interest in the occult
and the supernatural. This is evident in his many
paintings dwelling on sinister themes. Hooded
figures often appear in his work from the late
1930’s onwards.
Perhaps as a reaction against the overdose of
destruction brought by the Second World War,
Burra turned to landscape as a subject matter
from the 1940’s onwards. But even here, there is
a sinister edge to the scenes he depicts, and the
landscapes seem to embody malevolent spirits.
One such picture is The Straw Man, which shows
a group of about four men violently kicking a
lifesize dummy made of straw. A few other men
look on, and a mother and child hurry past, the
mother shielding her child’s eyes from the sight.
The image hints at some old-fashioned folk ritual,
and unlike other works such as Bird Men and Pots
(1946) or John Deth (Homage to Conrad Aiken)
(1931), which are clearly fantasy, this image
seems more frightening because it is so ordinary,
happening in a recognisably modern-day, British
landscape. The image was probably based on a
painting by Goya, The Straw Mannikin (1791-2)
which Burra may well have seen in the Prado in
Madrid, during one of his visits to Spain.
Bird Men and Pots, 1946
Watercolour on paper, 75.5 x 56 cm
Royal Pavilions, Museums and Libraries, Brighton and Hove
This painting from 1946 shows the continued influence of Surrealist artist Max Ernst, who first came to
Burra’s attention, along with other Surrealists, in the 1930’s. The varied sources for the imagery in this
work is typical of Burra - he drew in references from diverse sources, both ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, and was
skilled at combining them. There is a feeling that the painting depicts a story or myth, although it is not
clear what this myth is, and the title provides no clues.
Key elements
• Influence of Surrealism, including artist Max
Ernst’s bird-headed creatures (e.g. Birds,
Fish-snake and Scarecrow by Max Ernst,
1921).
• Bird-men appear in other artists’ work
throughout history, notably in Hieronymus
Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, c.
1500, of which Burra would certainly have
been aware.
• The bird heads also refer to traditional
Venetian Carnival masks and to masks worn
by actors in Commedia dell’arte, a form of
improvised theatre originating from Italy and
popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• The interior suggests an old castle or hall built
of stone, not a modern-day environment. This
reinforces the atmosphere of fantasy and
unreality.
• The shape of a bird’s beak is echoed several
times throughout the picture, including in the
jug on the table, which even has an eye, like a
bird’s head. There are also many circles, elipses
and ovals within the picture, which add to the
overall rhythm of the painting.
• The colours of the painting are very vivid, but in
fact Burra has used a limited palette of yellows
and reds, with splashes of purple and green.
These colours are two sets of complementary
pairs on the colour wheel: red (primary colour)
and green (secondary colour); yellow (primary
colour) and purple (secondary colour).
• The largest figure is wearing a red Phrygian
cap. This type of hat originated in ancient
Phrygia (now Turkey) and was adopted by
revolutionaries after the French Revolution
of 1789. ‘Marianne’, the national emblem of
France is still depicted wearing a Phrygian cap,
and it symbolises liberty and freedom.
Dancing Skeletons, 1934
Gouache and ink wash on paper, 78.7 x 55.9 cm
Tate
Dancing Skeletons refers to the allegorical subject known as the ‘Danse Macabre’ or ‘Dance of Death’,
which was popular in late Medieval and Renaissance times. The message of the Dance of Death is
simple; no matter who we are, pauper or millionnaire, servant, king or queen, celebrity or shop assistant,
death will get us all in the end. Far from being a depressing thought, this can actually have a positive
side - there is no point in taking life too seriously, or indeed putting too much store by material success
on earth, because we’re all eventually going to die!
• Other influences on Burra include the bizarre
and fantastic imagery of Hieronymus Bosch
(c.1450 - 1516) and Pieter Brueghel the
Elder (c. 1525 - 1569). Brueghel’s painting
The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) shows an
apocalyptic landscape in which skeletons are
slaying terrified humans, but is nevertheless
full of macabre humour.
• Walt Disney Studios produced a short
animation film called The Skeleton Dance as
part of their Silly Symphony series in 1929. As
Burra was an avid cinema-goer and drew on
popular culture for inspiration as much as ‘high
art’ it is likely that this cartoon was an influence.
• Burra may have got the idea for the three
hanged people in the top left-hand corner of
the painting from a photograph of hanged
African rebels that appeared in a 1929 issue
of Variétés, a Belgian magazine that Burra
was known to read.
• The skeletons are quite well-dressed, wearing
Key elements
• The use of unrealistic colour (one of the
skeletons is blue, another is pink) adds to the
sense of fantasy.
• German Neue Sachlichkeit artists George
Grosz and Otto Dix (whom Burra admired) used
skeletons and the ‘danse macabre’ theme in their
work to comment on the destruction and
horrors of the First World War. See Otto Dix’s
Dance of Death 1917 - Dead Man’s Hill, from
the print portfolio Der Krieg (War).
hats and scarves, and one has flowers in its hair.
They resemble Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’
skeletons, which are often depicted wearing
everyday clothes. In his painting Skeleton Party
(1952-4) Burra directly referred to a print
called La Calavera Catrina (The Elegant Skull) by
Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada.
• The moon is shown as a glowing skull which is
reminiscent of ‘Jack Skellington’ from Tim
Burton’s animation film The nightmare Before
Christmas. Perhaps Tim Burton was influenced
by this painting.
3: Theatre
Burra’s love of ‘theatre’ was fundamental to his
identity. Not only was he a keen consumer (of
cinema, theatre, ballet, opera, jazz music), but
through his work he engaged in all aspects of
perfomance, from depicting the performers
themselves and the audience, and highlighting
the theatricality of everyday life in his paintings,
to participating directly in theatre by designing
sets and costumes.
Burra enjoyed the contradictions between high
and low art. He visited the cinema frequently
to watch both popular movies and ‘arthouse’
films, enjoyed cabaret as well as opera and saw
Diagheilev’s Ballets Russes perform. He collected
picture postcards of famous film stars and
celebrities and sometimes used these in his work.
In this respect he shared some of the interests of
the pop artists, but twenty or thirty years before
them.
His close friend William Chappell was a ballet
dancer and this must have given Burra an insight
into the life of a performer.
In 1932 he was commissioned to illustrate poet
Humbert Wolfe’s volume of comic verse, ABC of
the Theatre. His black and white caricatures recall
the satirical drawings of George Grosz.
His first theatre commission was in 1931, for the
ballet A Day in a Southern Port (Rio Grande). The
ballet was choreographed by Frederick Ashton,
who was part of Burra’s social circle, and starred
his good friend William Chappell. It was based
on a poem by Sacheverall Sitwell which was set
in New Mexico, but Burra chose to locate his set
designs in the south of France, which he had
visited in the 1920s and which had inspired many
of his paintings from this time.
Burra also designed the costumes for A Day in
a Southern Port, which were regarded as quite
risqué for the times. His set and costume designs
were very well received, with the theatre critic for
the Daily Express newspaper describing them as
Costume designs for the inhabitants of the Gorbals, Miracle in
the Gorbals, 1944, watercolour on paper, 50 x 60 cm, James
L. Gordon collection
“brilliant and bizarre.” Burra went on to design for
several other ballets, including Barabau (1936),
Mircale in the Gorbals (1944), Carmen (1947)
Don Juan (1948) and Simply Heavenly (1957)
which was set in Harlem.
It must have been an exciting experience for an
artist to see his designs transferred to the stage
on an enormous scale, although on some
occassions, such as Carmen in 1947, it was a
disappointment for Burra. After Carmen opened
he wrote to his friend William Chappell saying
that he thought the sets couldn’t have been
painted worse and the costumes were tacky,
although he did admit that from ten rows back
the audience wouldn’t notice.
As a collaborator Burra was valued and he has
been described as outstanding amongst British
artists working in theatre. He was easy to work
with; the choreographer Frederick Ashton said
that Burra never resented any criticism and was
always happy to provide additional designs if the
first were not quite right. His costume designs
show a sensitive understanding of fabric as well
as great ability at conveying the personality of
the character, just as his paintings depict people’s
personalities and idiosyncracies so well.
Set model for the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals, Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Princes
Theatre, 1944
Card, wood and watercolour, 49 x 80 x 62 cm
Victoria & Albert Museum, Theatre Collections
The ballet Miracle in the Gorbals was based on a story by Michael Benthall and set to a music score by
Arthur Bliss. It is set in the Gorbals district of Glasgow, which at the time was an over-populated slum
area, and tells the loose Christian allegory of a young girl who has committed suicide and is brought
back to life by a Christ-like stranger. This stranger is then killed by an angry mob that has been incited
to violence by an evil minister. As well as designing the sets, Burra also designed the costumes for the
ballet.
Key elements
• Burra and the rest of the production team
went to Glasgow to experience the Gorbals
at first-hand. His observations formed the
basis for his set designs, as well as landscape
paintings such as Gorbals Landscape (1944).
• Details such as the washing hanging out of
windows to dry and the shop fronts are typical
of Burra’s obervations of everyday life.
• Perspective leads the audience’s eyes to a
smoking factory chimney in the distance.
• The ballet toured with the Entertainments
National Service Association (ENSA) to
Brussels to entertain troops abroad - in this
respect it was part of Burra’s contribution to
the war effort.
Mae West, 1934-5
Watercolour on paper, 76.2 x 55 cm
Private collection, courtesy Lefevre Fine Art
This painting depicts the Hollywood star and sex symbol Mae West (1893 - 1980). Mae West was
famous for her wit and use of the ‘double entendre’. She started out in vaudeville theatre and was first
given a motion picture contract in 1932, when she was 38 years old. As well as being an actress she was
also a playwright and screenwriter, and was an early supporter of the women’s liberation movement
(although she denied being a feminist) and a supporter of gay rights. For some of her later film roles in the
1970s she earned the title of ‘Queen of Camp’. Her spirit and bawdy approach to life must have greatly
appealed to Edward Burra, who described her in 1935 as his favourite performer.
Key elements
• The source for this image was a film still of
Mae West playing Ruby Carter in the comedy
western Belle of the Nineties (1934), made by
Paramount Pictures. Mae West also wrote the
film, which was originally to be called Ain’t No
Sin, however the censors deemed this title too
risqué and it was changed.
• In the background of the painting Burra has
depicted a statue of Venus posing modestly
with her hands over her breasts and genitals.
The statue’s pose echoes the pose of Mae
West, but whereas the statue looks shyly
away from the viewer, Mae West is grinning
directly at us, in keeping with her notoriously
outspoken personality.
• In a letter to his friend Barbara Ker-Seymer,
Burra describes Mae West’s figure with
unflattering but well observed wit:
“My favourite scene is when she stands draped
in diamante covered reinforced concrete
with a variety of parrots feathers ammerican
beauty roses and bats wings at the back...”
• The location of the picture appears to be the
interior of a theatre. Perhaps this refers to
Mae West’s early career in vaudeville.
• Another representation of Mae West in Pallant
House Gallery’s collection is Jann Haworth’s
sculpture Mae West Dressing Table, (1965).
• The colour scheme of the painting is made up
of yellow ochre and deep red, with touches of
green. The figures of Mae West and Venus
contrast with the background as they are
mainly grey or white in colour.
• The shapes of the architectural detail - the
grey stone balustrades and moulding - echo
the curvy figures of Venus and Mae West .
4: Landscape
Edward Burra had made landscape paintings
throughout his life, but from 1959 to his death in
1976 landscape became his main subject matter.
At first glance these later landscape paintings
can seem quite different from his other work.
Whereas much of his earlier work is cluttered
and full of detail, there is a great deal of space in
the late landscapes; Burra had been known for
his love of eccentric characters and situations,
and yet often the late landscapes have few or no
people in them.
But take a second look, and you will see that
many of the same concerns run through the
landscape paintings as through his earlier work.
Certainly, his landscape paintings are just as
much about narrative as his other work.
The landscapes are not conventional, picturesque
views and there is often a sinister edge to them,
with dark brooding colours or unlikely choice of
subject matter, such as a menacing petrol tanker
or bulldozer. Burra’s friend, the novelist Anthony
Powell said that Burra’s late landscapes depicted
“a very unnaturalistic English countryside”.
Although there are fewer people in the landscapes
than in his other work, these paintings do have
figures in them, often transparent or silhouetted,
hooded, or emerging from the landscape. When
asked by his friend William Chappell why he
was painting transparent people, Burra replied,
“Don’t you find as you get older, you start seeing
through everything?”
The landscapes were painted at the end of his
life, and it is easy to read meaning into this fact,
especially with the benefit of hindsight. But the
late landscapes do seem to sum up Burra’s
philosophy of life; a return to his roots and an
acknowledgement that nature is more powerful
than the achievements of human civilisation.
Travel was always an inspiration to Burra, but
as he got older, perhaps due to poor health, his
trips got shorter and were limited to the U.K. and
Ireland. As he got older he turned his attention
away from the exoticism of foreign places, to the
countryside which surrounded him.
The late landscapes have a slightly supernatural
feel to them, alluding to history and mysticism,
which Burra was interested in. In some of the
paintings the hills and earth seem to be alive, for
example, Picking a Quarrel, (1968-9), in which the
earth actually appears to be bleeding as it is being
excavated by two large diggers. It is as if Burra has
given a personality to the landscape itself.
Some of Burra’s landscapes, such as Blue Robed
Figure Under a Tree, (1937), also depict an
abundant overgrowth of plants, and are painted in
vivid greens and pure viridian. In Landscape,
Cornwall, with Figures and Tin Mines, (1975) he
has depicted a ‘Green Man’, (symbol of growth
and rebirth, and linked to ancient mythological
vegetation gods) emerging from the background
in the top left-hand corner.
Just as with his paintings of modern urban life,
Edward Burra didn’t work directly from the landscape or even from photographs. He composed
his landscape paintings so that they worked
pictorially, rather than trying to depict a specific
place accurately.
An English Scene No. 2, 1970
Watercolour on paper, 78.7 x 133.4 cm
Simon Draper Collection
This is one of Burra’s late landscapes, painted six years before his death. The elements in this painting
are arranged carefully to help make the composition work; the thin, snaking road in the distance leads
your eyes across the picture to the right edge and then the top of the petrol tanker leads you back into
the centre. The back end of the dark lorry blocks your eye from exiting on the left-hand side, and you are
brought back to the centre again.
Key elements
• It is a very modern view of the English landscape, with roads carving up the rolling hills.
• The motorcycle and two lorries conjure up the
speed and noise of roaring along the open
road. The flowing hair of the motorcycle
passenger shows that the picture was painted
before it was made compulsory to wear crash
helmets (1973) but more importantly it helps
represent the speed of the motorcycle.
• The grey sky in the distance creates a sense
of unease. It might be due to bad weather, or
perhaps it is air pollution.
• The hill in the distance has two tunnels carved
into it which resemble eyes, reinforcing the
feeling that the landscape is a living presence .
The Harbour, Hastings, 1947
Watercolour on paper, 73.7 x 110.5 cm
Pallant House Gallery (on long loan from a private collection)
This painting shows the harbour at Hastings, which is one of Britain’s oldest fishing ports, and even to
this day retains a lively fishing industry. Burra shows the fishermen going about their daily routines of
unloading crates of fish from their boats, winding in the nets, taking down sails and having a rest.
Key elements
• Hastings is just along the coast from Burra’s
home town of Rye, where he lived for most of
his life.
• The way the fishermen’s bodies are depicted
resembles the muscular figures from Burra’s
more fantastical paintings of this time, such as
Bird Men and Pots (1946) or War in the Sun
(1938).
• Burra has used a relatively limited palette of
pinks, greys, blues and blacks. There is a splash
of green which draws your eyes to the distant
hill on the left of the large dark boat.
• Even when dealing with this innocuous subject
matter, Burra can’t resist drawing a sinister
looking hooded figure at the bottom righthand corner!
Influences and connections
Modern Urban Life
Macabre
Popular culture - including cinema, novels,
Burlesque stage shows. Burra particularly
enjoyed watching films and reading novels which
offered him an insight into ‘low life’. He liked
visiting the Folies-Bergère in Paris and dance halls
in New York and Boston.
The Macabre - dictionary definition: gruesome;
disturbing and horrfying because of involvement
with or depiction of death and injury. Possibly from
the hebrew word meqaber, meaning grave-digger.
Jazz - throughout his life Burra was a huge fan of
Jazz and black music and visual culture in general,
which he experienced first-hand in New York.
Harlem Renaisance - a cultural movement
centred around Harlem, the African-American
neighbourhood of New York City in the 1920’s
and 1930’s. It was characterised by pride in Black
identity, a challenge to racism and racial stereotypes and a flowering of black culture. Key figures include Joesphine Baker (dancer and jazz
singer), Langston Hughes (poet), Zora Neale
Hurston (writer).
Unanimists - a group of French poets formed
by Jules Romains in the early 1900s. Their ideas
informed Burra’s view of humanity, particularly
the way in which being part of a crowd or mass
emotion can transcend individual consciousness.
Neue Sachlichkeit - ‘New Objectivity’ Group of
German realist artists including George Grosz,
Otto Dix, Rudolf Schlichter and Christian Schad,
who were committed to realist art for socialist
ends. They mercilessly depicted life in Germany
between the wars, including the corruption,
poverty and hedonism of the Weimar Republic.
William Roberts, Stanley spencer, Mark
Gertler and Fernand Léger - these artists
worked in a style sometimes called ‘tubism’, a
derivation of the term ‘cubism’ and referring to
the way they represented form as cylinders and
full, rounded shapes.
Colony Room 1 (1962) by Michael Andrews is
another work in Pallant House Gallery’s collection
which deals with city life and socialising.
Surrealism - Burra was involved with the English
Surrealist Group and signed their International
Surrealist Bulletin No 4 in 1936, although he later
broke away from them, saying he “didn’t like being told what to think.”
Bizarre or Grotesque imagery - such as the
fantastic creatures and themes of mortality in the
work of Heironymous Bosch and Peter Brueghel
the Elder. Also Belgian Symbolist artists James
Ensor and Felicien Rops.
Comedia dell’arte - masks, clowns, and
characters Harlequin, Pierrot and Columbine.
The ‘Weird fiction’ of H. P. Lovecraft, Gothic
novels and Horror films - provided insipration
and enjoyment for Burra throughout his life. His
library also contained books on the occult.
War - Burra was a boy during the First World
War, a grown man during the Second World War
and witnessed the beginning of the Spanish Civil
War at first-hand. He lived through a time that
saw conflict, devastation and genocide on a scale
hitherto unkown to humankind.
British and Irish folklore - see the film The
Wicker Man (1973, directed by Robin Hardy);
Punch and Judy puppet shows; Folk Archive
by Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane - http://
www.britishcouncil.org/folkarchive/folk.html
Dance of Death/Danse Macabre - a popular
allegorical theme from the late Medieval times
onwards. Examples include works by Michael
Wolgemut (1493), Hans Holbein the Younger
(1523-26), Alfred Kubin (1918) and musical
compositions by Camille Saint Saëns (1874),
Benjamin Britten (1939) and Iron Maiden (2003).
Theatre
Landscape
Ballet and opera - Burra enjoyed opera and
ballet. His close friend William Chappell was a
ballet dancer and appeared in some of the
productions that Burra designed for, for example
A Day in a Southern Port (Rio Grande).
Paul Nash - Burra was friends with the artist
during the 1920s and 1930s. Nash is known for
his war paintings and his visionary depictions of
British landscapes, including ancient historical
sites such as standing stones and Iron Age hill
forts. See Wittenham (1935), in Pallant House
Gallery’s collection. Burra was also a member of
Unit One, the group set up by Nash in 1933 to
promote British modern art.
Cinema - Burra’s diary entries for the 1920s
and 1930s record several trips per week to the
cinema. These were the early days of television,
before most people had a set, so cinema was a
cheap and frequent form of entertainment.
Burlesque - performances, such as cabarets or
variety shows, which use laughter and mockery
to poke fun at their subject. They often contain
bawdy jokes, and sometimes striptease.
Jazz music - Burra was a great jazz enthusiast.
Walter Sickert - an artist and member of the
Camden Town Group. Like Burra, he was drawn
to low-life subject matter and made paintings
of music halls, theatres and strip bars. See also
Sickert’s etching The Old Bedford (1910) and
Gwen Ffrangcon- Davies (1891 - 1992), in The
Lady With a Lamp (1932-34) both in Pallant
House Gallery’s collection.
William Roberts - particularly The Cinema
(1920), a painting which Burra saw at Roberts’
exhibition at the Chenil Gallery, London in 1923.
Travel - some of Burra’s travel destinations
appear as locations for his theatre set designs, for
example A Day in a Southern Port (Rio Grande)
features the Dolphin Fountain from Raymond’s
Bar in Toulon, Southern France.
Landscape watercolour painters - of the 18th
and 19th centuries, such as Francis Towne and
John Brett. Some researchers have suggested a
particular affinity with John Sell Cotman and his
use of strong abstract design and flat washes of
colour.
Gaia Theory - first proposed by James Lovelock
in 1969. The Gaia theory puts forward the idea
that the Earth, all living organisms on it, and it’s
inorganic surroundings (rocks, oceans, atmosphere
etc.) form a single, integrated and self-regulating
system which works to maintain the conditions for
life on our planet. There is no evidence that Burra
supported or even knew about Gaia theory, but it
seems sympathetic with Burra’s attitude towards
landscape and human’s effect upon it, evident in
his later paintings.
Animism - from the Latin word anima, meaning
soul or life, animism encompasses the beliefs
that there is no division between the physical and
spiritual worlds, and that everything, including
humans, animals, plants, and non-living things
such as rocks, rivers, and even weather, has a
soul or spirit. Again, this is surely a sentiment
with which Burra sympathised.
Travel within the U.K. - During the last 15 years
of his life Edward Burra visited: Ireland, Norfolk,
Suffolk, East Anglia, Peak District, South Wales,
Lake District, Cornwall, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire
and Northumberland, Dartmoor and Lindisfarne.
Some important dates in Edward Burra’s life
1905
1914
1918
1921-23
1923-25
1929
1933
1936
1938
1939
1945
1951
1971
1973
1976
Born Edward John Burra, in London
Outbreak of First World War
End of First World War
Attends Chelsea Polytechnic, London
Attends Royal College of Art, London
First one-person exhibition at Leicester Galleries, London
Sister Betsy dies of meningitis
First visits Spain and New York
Outbreak of Spanish Civil War
Exhibits in International Surrealist Exhibition in London and Paris
Outbreak of Second World War
Included in Contemporary British Art in the British Pavilion of the New York World’s Fair
Publication of Edward Burra in Penguin Modern Painters series
End of Second World War
Included inthe Arts Council’s exhibition Sixty Paintings for 51 at the Festival of Britain
Awarded the CBE
Retrospective exhibition held at Tate Gallery, London
Dies, 22nd October
Compiled and designed by Louise Bristow
With thanks to:
The Burra Supporters’ Circle