Windermere

From the mid-fifties onwards Burra went on regular motoring tours to the less populated areas of Britain with his sister, Anne. In 1973 he visited the Lake District with Anne and his great friend, William Chappell. Chappell recalled (W. Chappell (ed.), Edward Burra A Painter Remembered by his Friends, London, 1982, p. 112): 'Several times a year Anne arranged to take him on short motor tours to see the incredibly various aspects of the landscape in Great Britain. They went to Yorkshire, Derbyshire, to the Lake District, the West Country and Cornwall. When I was able, I went with them. It fascinated me to watch Edward when the car halted by some especially splendid spread of hills, moorland, and deep valleys. He sat very still and his face appeared completely impassive. He might, I thought, have been staring at a blank wall, until I saw the intensity of his gaze. I do not remember Edward ever making any sort of note: not even the faintest scribble; yet weeks even months later, the shapes, the tones; the actual atmosphere; and the colour of the clouded skies looming above those moors, hills, and valleys he had looked at so intently, would appear on paper'.