Φ Edward Burra, CBE (1905-1976)

Edward Burra, CBE (1905-1976)
The Gateway
Signed with stamped signature E. J. Burra (lower right)
Pencil, watercolour and gouache, c.1962-1963
132 x 78.5cm

Provenance:
The Lefevre Gallery, London
Sotheby's, London, Works from the Estate of Edward Burra, Lady Ritchie of Dundee and Associated Owners, 3 July 2002, lot 298;
The Collection of the late A J Lippitt

Exhibited:
London, The Lefevre Gallery, Watercolours by Edward Burra, 1963, no.12

Literature:
Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: The Complete Catalogue (Oxford, 1985), no.287

Painted in 1962-3 The Gateway shares similar subject matter to other Burra works of this period, for example The Fountain and The Tomb, in which Burra has depicted figurative statuary. Burra's love for the unusual and macabre is apparent in these works as the figures seem almost lifelike but are nonetheless trapped within the lifeless stone. The figures and the bull recall motifs within Picasso's Guernica (1937), the sinuous forms here both static and energised.