Edward Burra
Edward Burra (born March 29, 1905 in London , † October 22, 1976 in Hastings ) was a British painter .
Life
Burra grew up as the son of a wealthy lawyer in a country house near the small town of Rye , Sussex . An anemia weakened his health, so his parents let him give private lessons. This also included an art education in which Burra showed talent at an early age. The rebellion against the restrictive provincial life and against his weak body shaped Burra. From 1921 to 1923 he attended the Royal College of Art in London and then the Chelsea School of Art until 1924 . Life in the big city during the Roaring Twenties fascinated him. Here he found the motifs that were preserved through his artistic work over the next few years.
In 1927 Burra traveled to France . Traveling became his great passion and inspiration. In Toulon and Marseille he found the port environment that made up his work at this time with its pubs, rough sailors and prostitutes. He usually set off on his travels spontaneously without telling anyone that he was traveling - and where. In 1931 in Marseille he was commissioned to design the stage set for a ballet. Burra liked this form of art; later he worked even more often as a set designer. A trip to New York followed in 1933 . There he lived in Harlem , whose everyday life became the subject of his paintings. On further trips Burra always found new motifs. In Spain he was fascinated by the temperament and spontaneity of the people.
The political unrest leading up to the Spanish Civil War ended his stays there. Here dark motifs, hatred and violence, appeared in his pictures. In World War II , this trend intensified. He became a member of the British Surrealist Group . Burra, prevented from traveling by the war, became depressed , and with him his pictures. His breakthrough as a well-known artist after an exhibition in a renowned gallery is no more able to cheer him up than the economic security provided by a contract with the Lefevre Gallery in London. He made no secret of his contempt for the hypocritical and narrow-minded art scene.
After the war, Burra resumed traveling. However, his interest changed. He began to turn away from human motifs and paint landscapes. After the death of his father in 1958 and his mother in 1968, he moved - instead of the villa - to a gardener's house on his parents' estate. In 1976, weakened by illness, he died in hospital.
plant
Edward Burra mainly painted watercolors . His style was characterized by the rich application of paint and the clear contours. The motifs are reproduced in a factually distanced manner. In 1929 he began to experiment with collages made from newspaper clippings. In the following year, collage-like paintings took their place. His compositions consist of parts arranged without an aerial , color or central perspective. A well-known watercolor with Indian ink Zoot Suits was created in 1948.
In his works you can see the influence of George Grosz : sarcastic social criticism and objective irony determine the representation. Black humor also appears in nightmarish arrangements. In the post-war years, Burra began to draw his characters transparently, until he finally gave up depicting people.
Individual evidence
literature
- Jane Turner (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Art. Grove 1996, ISBN 1-884446-00-0 .
- Joachim Seidel among others: Edward Burra. In: painter. Life, work and their time. No. 91. Marshall Carvendish, 1987.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Burra, Edward |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 29, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 22, 1976 |
| Place of death | Hastings |