‘Well Dearie’ Edward Burra (1905 - 1976)

Black Mountain Wales (1968) - Edward Burra

Edward Burra (1905-1976) is a name that comes up regularly in Rye, as one of our most famous

inhabitants there are many people who remember, recollect and eulogise about this enigmatic

individual. His artwork and his life were a journey of immeasurable achievement, he was

overwhelmed with illness from birth but rather than allowing this to become his identity, he worked

tirelessly creating the paintings we now recognise as some of the most famous watercolours in the art world.

In fact, so much so that one of the finest treasures of Rye Art Gallery’s permanent collection, the

painting by “Ed”, Black Mountain, Wales (1968) has travelled up to London where it features in the

Tate Britain exhibition on Edward Burra that opens next week on June 13th .

To categorise Edward Burra would not only be offensive but also impossible within the regulations of

art history, he skirts around surrealism, he meanders through landscapes lending them eerie figures

that dissolve all that they see, and he encapsulates abstraction by creating familiar but at the same

time unfamiliar spaces. Upon viewing his paintings you are drawn into an exhaustive range of

influences, incorporating international observation planted with German cinematic references, the

baroque and jazz.

It is through his letter writing the enigma that is Edward Burra sometimes dissipates, and we get a

glimpse of his personality and thoughts through his caustic sentences to his beloved friends. This

friendship circle lasted a lifetime for Burra and provided entertainment, love, laughter and loyalty.

These communications are not just hilarious but provide a pinhole, enabling the reader to engage in

their special creative world and can transport us to what it means to be an artist. Close friends like

William Chappell, Barbara Ker- Seymour, Clover Pritchard, and of course Edward Burra’s mentor Paul Nash.

Edward Burra working in his studio in Rye

Trudging through the Burra archive in Rye is revealing from uncovering erotic photographs to reading postcards from his travels to his close friends while he was ‘stuck ‘at home in the country working in Rye. They are accounts that reveal sexuality, love and obsession, a side of Burra’s past that history has generally avoided. This archive traces earlier incarnations of a queer time and space that resonates with the complex contradictions in Burra’s own life and work. For Edward Burra lived

through times of freedom and exploration during 1920s, when he was a student and a ‘bright young

thing’ which then disappears until the 1970s when he illustrates drag queens during his wild pub visits to the Cambridge Arms in Hastings. A haunt for him and another good friend John Banting, both in search of escape from the tearoom gossip and gift shops of a sometimes claustrophobic “Tinkerbell town” as he called it – a place that was and is still the rather wonderful Rye.

George Melly (left) Edward Burra (middle) unknown friend at the Windsor Castle

I suggest a trip up to the Tate Britain to see this new Burra exhibition is an absolute must go visit and please visit Rye Art Gallery if you want to find out more about our special ‘Burra’ art collection and archive.