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Edward Burra: Twentieth-century Eye
Edward Burra never followed the in the thirties, when modern art was dominated by abstraction and landscape, he painted people; in the sixties, when landscape was completely out of fashion, he started to find it interesting. This is a biography of Edward Burra.
- GenresBiography
512 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
16 people want to read
About the author
Jane Stevenson
50 books24 followersDr. Jane Stevenson (born 1959) is a UK author who was born in London and brought up in London, Beijing and Bonn. She has lectured in history at Sheffield University, and teaches literature and history at the University of Aberdeen. Her fiction books include Several Deceptions, a collection of four novellas; a novel, London Bridges; and the historical trilogy made up of the novels The Winter Queen, The Shadow King, and The Empress of the Last Days. Stevenson lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Her academic publications include Women Latin Poets (Oxford University Press), Early Modern Women Poets with Peter Davidson (Oxford University Press) and The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, co-edited with Peter Davidson (Prospect Books).
Her academic publications include Women Latin Poets (Oxford University Press), Early Modern Women Poets with Peter Davidson (Oxford University Press) and The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, co-edited with Peter Davidson (Prospect Books).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 6, 2014
Jane Stevenson's biography of one of the greatest English watercolourists of the 20th century.
Edward Burra never followed the fashion: in the thirties, when modern art was dominated by abstraction and landscape, he painted people; in the sixties, when landscape was completely out of fashion, he started to find it interesting. His life was an unusual one: profoundly disabled, he lived with his parents, and was in constant pain. Only when he was painting could he forget his body.
At the same time he was a man with a rich and full life. He was a letter-writer of genius, writing every afternoon to a wide circle of friends. His letters are camp, witty, full of the energy and delight in life which he could not express physically. Inventive, entertaining, and extraordinarily original, his writing expresses a man who combined profound personal loyalty with distaste for any kind of emotional grandstanding.
This is Jane Stevenson’s first biography. It will of course be welcomed by historians of modern British art, but equally readers of Stevenson’s fiction will delight in her portrait of this wonderfully original man and his circle: it has, she says, been like eavesdropping on a fifty-year conversation.
Edward Burra never followed the fashion: in the thirties, when modern art was dominated by abstraction and landscape, he painted people; in the sixties, when landscape was completely out of fashion, he started to find it interesting. His life was an unusual one: profoundly disabled, he lived with his parents, and was in constant pain. Only when he was painting could he forget his body.
At the same time he was a man with a rich and full life. He was a letter-writer of genius, writing every afternoon to a wide circle of friends. His letters are camp, witty, full of the energy and delight in life which he could not express physically. Inventive, entertaining, and extraordinarily original, his writing expresses a man who combined profound personal loyalty with distaste for any kind of emotional grandstanding.
This is Jane Stevenson’s first biography. It will of course be welcomed by historians of modern British art, but equally readers of Stevenson’s fiction will delight in her portrait of this wonderfully original man and his circle: it has, she says, been like eavesdropping on a fifty-year conversation.
Displaying 1 of 1 review