One of the most distinctive British artists of the 20th century, the enigmatic painter Edward Burra (1905 – 1976) is best-known for his vivid and surreal scenes of cafés, clubs and cabarets. Imbued with a satirical humour, his unique works captured a rapidly changing society, sharing the experiences of those on the margins and offering a window into their world. This June, Tate Britain will present the artist’s first retrospective in over a decade and the first in London in 40 years. From his immersion in cultural life during the Roaring Twenties, to his personal experience of major conflicts, the exhibition will present an in-depth view of Burra’s radical career across more than 80 paintings and previously unseen material from Tate’s archive.
Organised chronologically, the exhibition covers Burra’s 50-year practice, from early works painted soon after graduating from the Royal College of Art to his stage and costume designs and less exhibited later landscapes. Possessing a keenly observant eye, Burra is noted for his unusual compositions, crafted with a distinct visual language that set him apart from his contemporaries. A master of watercolour, he deployed the traditional medium in a bold manner, using bright layers of wash to create graphic, and sometimes garish works, on a large-scale. He found solace in his work, saying that ‘painting of course is a sort of drug’, and composed works on a horizontal surface to also help relieve his rheumatoid arthritis. Depicting everyday life from the perspective of an observer, the exhibition will explore how he combined first-hand experiences and memories with a rich tapestry of visual references absorbed from newspapers, literature, art history, music and cinema.
Although Burra lived in East Sussex for most of his life, Tate Britain will explore how his travels impacted his artmaking. Beginning with visits to Paris and the South of France in the 1920s, Burra encountered both cosmopolitan culture and those who lived on societal edges, and sympathetically included them in his compositions; queer people, sex workers, wanderers and underworld figures, inspired notable works such as Three Sailors at the Bar 1930. Compelled by his love of music - which will play in the exhibition - he travelled to America, visiting Boston and Harlem, New York, in the early 1930s. There he immersed himself in the vibrant nightlife, enjoying the experience of crowded jazz clubs during the Harlem Renaissance. Burra translated the energy and enthusiasm he witnessed into works like Red Peppers 1934-35, capturing the multi-cultural modern metropolis, while paintings such as Dancing Skeletons 1934 explored the artist’s growing interest in Mexican culture and the macabre.
The exhibition will look at Burra’s personal experience of conflicts in Europe, which marked a turning point in his work. Fleeing his beloved Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, he followed the conflict from England, collecting newspaper cuttings, which will be featured in the exhibition. Grappling with these horrors, his paintings became social commentaries on the wars. The tone of his scenes no longer retained the humour of his earlier works but became more serious and uncompromising, showing devilish figures committing violent acts, such as in War in the Sun 1938. Conflict followed Burra to England, as the outbreak of the Second World War saw England’s South Coast heavily bombed, and Burra witnessed the presence of Allied troops, imagined as monstrous mask wearing figures in Soldiers at Rye 1941. Several macabre paintings such as Hostesses 1932 were included in major Surrealism exhibitions, although Burra rejected formal affiliations with artistic groups.
His outlook was radically altered by war, yet Burra’s stage and costume designs remained fun and sardonic throughout his career. The exhibition will explore Burra’s lifelong affinity with ballet, opera and theatre through the designs he produced for choreographers Frederick Ashton and Ninette de Valois, and productions for the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells. These designs will highlight his eye for dramatic scenes drawn from memories of his hedonistic travels.
The final section of the exhibition will focus on Burra’s post-war life. Due to his declining health, his travel was limited to driving tours of Britain and Ireland, but he explored rural locations including Cornwall and the Lake District in search of sublime natural beauty. No longer interested in capturing real people in busy metropolises, Burra turned to otherworldly landscape paintings, suffused with environmental anxiety caused by the post-war industrial revolution. Mine shafts litter mountains and petrol stations occupy the countryside in Cornish Clay Mines 1970, in direct contrast to the carefree world Burra had once known and painted.