From safe, traditional, beginnings in East Sussex, Edward Burra's life and art sallied forth, encountering Parisian nightlife, the jazz clubs of prohibition-era New York and the war-torn landscapes of the Spanish Civil War. His paintings have been described as ‘vividly idiosyncratic and memorable’ and became increasingly disturbing and surreal. This lecture looks at the life and work of this highly unusual British artist and the reasons his art took the form it did.