Ropes and Lorries, 1942-43

with Fred Mayor, Mayor Gallery;
with The Rutland Gallery;
Sir Ian Rankin from the above, 11 June 1973

London, Leicester Galleries, The Recent Work of Edward Burra, June 1949 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 8);
London, Hamet Gallery, Edward Burra Watercolours and Drawings, October 1970 (illustrated as Lorries and Swing (lent by Fred Mayor) in the exhibition catalogue, no. 10);
Rotterdam, Kunsthal, Stanley Spencer Between Heaven and Earth, September 2011 – January 2012;
Djanogly Gallery, Edward Burra, 2 March – 27 May 2012;
London, RCA, A Perfect Place to Grow, 16 November 2012 – 3 January 2013;
Woking, The Lightbox, The Ingram Collection: The Impact of War, 15 October 2014 – 4 January 2015;
London, Jerwood, Hastings, In Focus: Edward Burra – A Rye View, 26 February – 7 June 2015;
London, Two Temple Place, Sussex Modernism: Retreat and Rebellion, 28 January – 23 April 2017;
London, Mall Galleries, The Art of Collecting, 27 June – 6 July 2018;
Cookham, The Stanley Spencer Gallery, Counterpoint: Stanley Spencer and his contemporaries, 28 March – 3 November 2019;
Hastings, Hastings Contemporary, The Age of Turmoil, 18 January – 29 March 2020

Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, Oxford, 1985 (illustrated, no. 160)

This landscape is based on a garrison that was situated near Edward Burra’s hometown of Rye. Painted during the Second World War, the chaotic, menacing trucks and muscular soldiers in the background evoke the tragedy of war. Figures are submerged under some of the trucks and a surreal looking child sits on a swing in the foreground whilst the hooded figure of death surveys the scene from the pathway. This picture expresses the mechanics of war overwhelming human life.