“[Edward Burra] satirizes the present with an alarming gentleness, sympathy and an abandoned feeling of nonsense. His world is not pestered by vain attempts to rationalize. It is the topsy-turvy world we somehow live in…”

John Banting (from Edward Burra: A Painter Remembered; Andre Deutsch, 1982).

Portrait of Edward Burra (1905-1976) by John Banting [1930s; National Portrait Gallery]

Greetings! What a glorious meeting we had on Saturday exploring the early paintings of Edward Burra – and indeed his world. Whether London, Paris, Marseille or Harlem, the theatre and ballet, films or illustrated magazines and paperback-thrillers, all inspired his imagination and the pictures are packed with people going about their business; with drama and humour they offer quite a perspective on the 1920s Jazz Age. The early works, certainly, deliver a fairly benign vision of the ‘underworld’ – the sex workers, sailors and dubious-looking characters – that must have represented such excitement and freedom so far were they from the respectability of Rye and, indeed, the exhaustion of illness, not to mention the cultural shadow of World War I.

The best books – and there are very few – on Edward Burra, are:

Jane Stevenson’s biography “Edward Burra: Twentieth-Century Eye” (Jonathan Cape, 2007)

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Simon Martin’s Pallant House Gallery exhibition catalogue “Edward Burra” (Lund Humphries, 2011)

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The Tate website has a fascinating Rothenstein Lecture by Andrew Stephenson: New Ways of Modern Bohemia’: Edward Burra in London, Paris, Marseilles and Harlem as well as some digitised archive images, such as this wonderful woodcut “Balcony” (c.1928/9):

There is also a (rather tame) episode of Radio 4’s “Great Lives” on i-player with Jane Stevenson and Jonathan Meades, and (currently unavailable) a documentary by Andrew Graham-Dixon “I Never Tell Anybody Anything: The Life and Art of Edward Burra” (which might be found on YouTube)

For Burra’s art works, the best places are Christies and Sothebys – click on the picture and sometimes there’s a “Lot Essay” further down the individual pages.

Other interesting websites for the 1930s more generally are: Cocktails with Elvira – all about Elvira Barney and her circle of friends, and for some great photographs and a brief history of the Harlem Renaissance period: allthatsinteresting.com

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For an overview of the Bright Young People scene in 1920s & 30s London:

D.J. Taylor’s “Bright Young People” [Vintage, 2008] is an excellent and highly recommended read.

Drawing on the writings and reminiscences of the Bright Young People themselves, D.J. Taylor has produced an enthralling social and cultural history, a definitive portrait of a vanished age.

And for a broader social/ political history of the 1930s, Juliet Gardiner’s book “The Thirties” (2011, HarperCollins) is, to my mind, the very best.

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One aspect we discussed was Burra’s admiration for Josephine Baker:

Went to the Casino de P[aris] revue, glorious my dear. Ive never enjoyed so much for years. J[osephine] Baker rose out of a gilded casket in a green evening dress to the floor trimmed with diamonte & sang ‘King for a day’ in English. Never have I heard anything so lovely.

– Letter from Edward Burra to Barbara Ker-Seymer [Tate]

And Baker is still, of course, renowned as a performer, a pioneering artist on stage and screen. She was also, through World War II, a highly skilful and successful spy. And she is about to be honoured in Paris.

In The Times (4th Sept. 2021), Ben Macintyre writes:

“It is primarily in appreciation of her work as an agent of the French Resistance… that Baker’s remains will be interred at the Pantheon in November. She will be only the sixth woman to received France’s highest honour, the first entertainer and the first black woman to be laid to rest in a national mausoleum… alongside Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Voltaire.”

I believe this will be happening on 30th November, and they’re bound to broadcast it on the France 24 channel (streamed on the internet, in English).

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Cannot wait to see all these GLORIOUS paintings!

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It was through reading and discussing “Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania” (published this year by Head of Zeus) with author Paul Kenyon recently that I’ve learnt a little about Romania’s contemporary art scene.

It’s towards the end of the book – a history of catastrophic leadership in Romania throughout the 20th century – that Paul writes of the present day:

“The collective trauma of communism, followed by revolution and then a decade of near darkness, has ignited in some a rare level of drive and inspiration. Up in the Transylvanian city of Cluj, a group of pioneering painters have caught the imagination of the art world with their wild and experimental styles, their loose application of paint, and their creation of haunting, sometimes brutal images of post-communist Romania. Members of the Cluj School are in their thirties and forties, working out of an abandoned communist brush factory in the city, while their canvases are exhibited in top galleries around the world… “

There is a fascinating essay in Contemporary Art Issues that gives the broad context and highlights the key artists of the Cluj School and another overview via Christies.

So many of the paintings are immediately fascinating, but it’s “The Sunflowers in 1937” [2014] by Adrian Ghenie that really caught my attention. The photograph at the top of the page here is from Romania Insider magazine, the headline that Ghenie’s painting sold for over £3million at Sothebys in 2016.

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We all know Vincent Van Gogh’s glorious series of Sunflowers paintings, such as the one at the National Gallery in London, and that familiarity is, perhaps, what makes Ghenie’s painting so shocking and, indeed, so powerful.

The Sotheby’s essay (in full here) notes: “Adrian Ghenie’s The Sunflowers in 1937 is an extraordinary and monumental reimagining of van Gogh’s masterpiece as subject to the events of twentieth-century history”. For, along with the familiarity of the image, is the shocking recognition of the date in the painting’s title: “1937 was the year in which the Nazi regime held the infamous exhibition of ‘Degenerate Art’ at the Institute of Archaeology in the Hofgarten in Munich” and it is this history that haunts Ghenie’s picture. The Sotheby’s essay describes:

As though witnessing van Gogh’s Sunflowers in a state of near inferno, we imagine molten passages of oil paint shrinking to blackened welts as the canvas itself begins to disintegrate and disappear into thin air.

Adrian Ghenie, along with the other Cluj School artists, is only too aware of what fascism, totalitarianism and ‘cultural cleansing’ can do to a society and its people.

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Horrendously, such cultural violence is currently being unleashed in Afghanistan where the visual art scene had been flourishing in recent years. Now:

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Recent researches into the art and life of Gwen John for our Art, Books & Culture discussion group have led me to begin investigating a close friend of John’s, the artist Ursula Tyrwhitt (1872-1966) – although there is at first appearance very little to go on, despite her having a number of exhibitions.

The artuk.org website does have sixteen of her paintings – mostly from the National Library of Wales, so I guess one of my next steps is to visit their archives. The painting that really stands out from this selection for me – besotted by colour and flowers as I am!) is

“Still Life with Primroses”

That gorgeous blaze of oranges and yellows seems to vibrate, even fizz, deliciously.

That they are primroses links to Margaret Forster’s novel “Keeping the World Away” in which Ursula visits Gwen’s apartment in Paris. She had brought with her “some primroses, bought that morning from a woman selling them in the street. They were fresh, newly picked…”. She reaches the door to see that Gwen is painting, fears disturbing the concentration, whispers her name and holds out the flowers. Her friend turns, takes the flowers and puts them in water. replacing the book that is on the table and part of her still life painting.

“‘Good’, she said, ‘the flowers are just right. They say the right things’. Ursula wondered what these right things were, but Gwen was asking her if she would like tea…”

detail from Gwen John’s “A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris” [1907-9; Sheffield Museums; artuk.org]

In “Portraits of Women: Gwen John and Her Forgotten Contemporaries”, Alison Thomas notes:

“Ursula possessed a great gift for painting flowers. The shapes, forms and colours of a vase of flowers on a table, perhaps in front of a window, would inspire her to paint a bold composition. Ursula favoured the larger, more brightly coloured summer flowers: it is their size and varied shapes that give structure and form to her compositions, yet despite their outward boldness there is much delicacy and subtlety, particularly in her handling of the paint.”

Thomas continues:

By her use of thin, transparent and fluid washes, Ursula allows the essential structure of the flowers to act as a framework for the brilliant hues. She hints at literal appearance, but does not overstate. [In her paintings of flowers by windows] …the flowers themselves remain central in the composition, reinforcing their presence by glowing colour which captures our attention and incites our admiration.”

Absolutely!

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Only the very beginning, then, but a research project has been announced: archives, here we come!

There is a gorgeous painting by Ursula Tyrwhitt on the internet called “Nosegay” [1913] but sadly no gallery link or further information; what an inspiration to find out more though:

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Greetings! Such a glorious meeting of the ABC Group last weekend; wonderful to see everyone as always.

Gwen John (1876-1939): The Student (portrait of Dorelia McNeill) [1904; Manchester Art Gallery; artuk.org]

The Pictures

As always, one of the best resources to see the paintings is artuk.org – click on the link and it will take you to 80 pictures by Gwen John.

The other brilliant resource for images – in particular the drawings and watercolours is Sotheby’s – again, this link will take you straight there.

Articles & Essays

The Tate website has a broad overview of Gwen John’s life and work; also a number of articles in Tate Etc. magazine including: I think if we are to do beautiful pictures, we ought to be free from family conventions and ties: Gwen and Augustus John by Virginia Ironside and David Fraser Jenkins

The National Museum of Wales has a very interesting series of articles by Neil Lebeter which look closely at Gwen John’s painting technique: it’s the tone that matters

And there is an essay on artuk.org by Catherine Jamieson: Quiet Intensity.

Books

For me, the best book on Gwen John’s art is by Cecily Langdale:

which is sadly out of print, but available at the library and there is a short article, c/o the publishers here.

My ‘highly recommended’ also goes to Alison Thomas’s “Portraits of Women: Gwen John and her forgotten contemporaries” from Polity Press, a group biography of Edna Clarke Hall, Gwen John, Ida Nettleship and Gwen Smith. Sadly again it seems to be out of print, but certainly worth tracking down.

Other books we mentioned include, Among the Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson which is a wonderful read; Rebecca Birrell’s brand new book This Dark Country which looks at a number of artists from intriguing perspectives and has an essay on Gwen John and you just can’t get better in terms of a fictional portrait than in Margaret Forster’s Keeping the World Away!

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Television

There is also an archived documentary programme (BBC, 1975) on both Gwen and Augustus John available on i-player: The Fire and the Fountain.

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As always: Happy Researching! and do let me know what else you come across, and I’ll add it in!

In the meantime: one of Gwen John’s beautiful flower paintings,

“Vase of Flowers” [1910s; National Library of Wales; artuk.org]

All best wishes, The Common Viewer

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