Burra, Edward
'Winter' brings together Edward Burra's lifelong interest in genre scenes with a newfound fascination for landscape painting, which he had begun in earnest in the late 1950s. The subdued, melancholic atmosphere and the sense of narrative mystery are typical of Burra's work. Heavily cloaked figures huddle together in groups, sweeping snow from a country road. While most of the faces are highly generalised or abstracted, a handful of quirky profiles and piercing eyes appear at the centre and bottom right, showing the continued influence of both Surrealism and caricature on Burra's work.
In 'Winter', as in almost all of his paintings, Burra used watercolour in preference to oil paint to produce his distinctive stippled effects, and rather than making preliminary studies from life, Burra relied on memory and imagination to create this enigmatic scene.
Jacky Klein
- Artwork Details: 134.6 x 80cm
- Edition:
- Material description: watercolour on cardboard
- Credit line: © Estate of the artist c/o Lefevre Fine Art Ltd
- Theme: Figurative
- Medium: Painting
- Accession number: ACC2/1965