London, Lefevre Gallery, Recent Works by Edward Burra, 1975 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 4);
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Body and Soul, 1975 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 72);
Lefevre Gallery, London, An Exhibition of Works by Edward Burra, 1987 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 21, p. 45);
Woking, The Lightbox, The Ingram Collection: Dreams and Nightmares, 22 May – 15 July 2012;
Bristol, Royal West of England Academy, Drawing On, 21 March – 7 June 2015;
Woking, The Lightbox, Bodies! The Ingram Collection, 21 November 2015 – 31 January 2016;
Kendal, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Land | Sea | Life: A British Art Collection, 20 October 2017 – 17 February 2018;
Woking, The Lightbox, The Art of Watercolour, 11 August – 4 October 2020
Literature:
Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Oxford, 1985 (illustrated, no. 397, pl. 32, incorrectly titled ‘Figure Composition no.2’ and incorrectly dated 1944-45);
Nick Jones, Contemporary Stories, Oxford University Press, 1986 (illustrated in colour on the cover)
Edward Burra suffered from life-long health problems, including chronic arthritis and a blood disease that left him with little energy. Schooled at home, away from conventional education, it is thought that this may have contributed to him becoming an artist as his imagination could blossom in this environment. Burra worked almost entirely in watercolour, creating vivid colours and dark tones with each layer of paint, unusual for the medium. Painted at the end of the artist’s life, Burra depicts a parade of figures both real and imaginary which occupy the entire picture space in a frieze-like composition. Executed with consummate skill and control of the medium, the figures merge and yet remain distinct, ghost-like and solid at the same time. The largest grey figure, extending to almost the full height of the sheet can be seen as autobiographical, the distinctive features convincingly Burra’s own. His last vision of the world seems to be confusion, but seen with the absolute clarity of hindsight.
