"Little girl and comic"
"The character of Glasgow lies in its back streets which are for me pictorially exciting. There is no social or political impetus behind my paintings of that part of Glasgow, as is sometimes suggested. The back streets mean almost entirely screaming, playing children - all over the streets - and only in the shadows of doorways groups of women, and at street corners groups of men, but always chiefly children and the noise of children." Eardley rented a studio in the heart of Glasgow and it was here that she was exposed to nitty-gritty daily life with all the recognisable characters that so dominated her work of the 1950s. In the sketches of children from this period Eardley would use any old scraps of paper any medium she could find, including the blue distemper which she had used to decorate the studio walls which give her work the kind of honesty and truth that she saw in the faces of her sitters. As Cordelia Oliver observes, Eardley's studio "was brightly lit, with a glass roof, unbearably hot in summer and ice-cold in winter but, as a painter's studio, it was perfect. Better still, it was plumb in the middle of a teeming community, with street kids constantly under foot, playing their seasonal games, the boys planning and wreaking mischief and the older girls, as always, minding their younger brothers and sisters."
"Brass hair and wool"
"The Green Scarf"
"Children and chalked wall"
"Ginger"
"The Blue Socks"
"Two Children"
"Urchin in a green coat"
"Portrait of Andrew Samson"
"Samson children"
"Brother and sister"
"Samson child"
"Street kids"
"Study of a reclining girl"
"The Pink Jersey"
"Boy in a blue jersey"
"Pat"
"Jimmy"
"Young man with pipe"
"Head of a boy"
"Portrait of an old lady"
"The striped muffler"Eardley first discovered the tiny fishing village of Catterline, just south of Stonehaven in 1950. Several visits followed and from 1956 she took up semi-residence in the village. She stayed first at The Watch House, then bought no. 1 Catterline, which she retained as a store and studio after she moved to 'Sarah's', and from there to no. 18 in the middle of the village. The sea, the shore with fishing nets stretched out to dry, the string of clifftop cottages perched high above, and the extensive fields beyond provided a constant source of inspiration. All year round she painted out of doors, revelling in the extreme conditions and developing an increasingly expressionistic technique to capture the wild landscape on canvas.
"Cottage and beehives"
"Yellow Sky" 1962
"Sea and sky"
"Crashing waves"
"Setting sun" 1963
"Catterline in winter"
"Summer evening"
"Todd Ness Lighthouse, Catterline"
"The sun and the sea"
"Cottages at Catterline"
"Beehives, storm approaching"
"Snow"
"Self portrait"- Hidden Fires - The Overlooked Genius of Joan Eardley
- Selection of works from the National Galleries of Scotland collection
- Extensive overview of her career at Studio International
- BBC 4 Women's Hour documentary on Eardley
- Great Scots: Joan Eardley
- 2007 monograph on her work by Fiona Pearson and Sara Stevenson.
- Rare Eardley hidden behind sketch
.jpg)
3 comments:
Fabulous blog... how did I find it? I can't remember! Anyway, I am a huge fan of Joan Eardley's work, have been since art college days, but you hardly ever hear about her. Thanks so much for such an insightful blog. I shall enjoy following it.
Lynne Windsor
I could spend the rest of my life just searching out these special artists like Joan Eardley who make the search a joy.
www.imagefromthevillage.co.uk
Eugene Conway
Christopher Andreae writes
Fascinating gathering of Eardleys. Is there any way more information could be available about the images? Like: medium; date, whereabouts (i.e. in private hands or public collections); dimensions? Anything that would make Eardley more accessible and therefore more appreciated.
Post a Comment