A Portrait Of Joan Eardley

A new exhibition showcases the work of one of the most extraordinarily gifted modern artists from the last century.

- Dawn Geddes

JOAN EARDLEY was an incredible modern artist with deep Scottish roots. Best known for her vivid portraits of children playing out in the streets of Glasgow and her dramatic coastal landscapes of the village of Catterline, her work embodies life in Scotland in the 1940s and 50s.

Now, with an exhibition entitled A Sense Of Place being shown at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, Joan’s paintings are being admired by a new audience.

Joan was born on a dairy farm in Horsham, Sussex on May 18, 1921, to 20-year-old Scot, Irene Morrison and English Army Captain William Edwin Eardley, who met in Glasgow during the First World War.

When Joan was just seven her father, who had never recovered from his experiences of being gassed in the trenches, committed suicide.

She moved to Black heath, London, with her mother and young sister, to be near her grandmother and aunt. She began attending St Helens, a private school, where her great flair for drawing was first noticed. Encouraged by her art teacher, Joan enrolled at Goldsmiths College but her family fled London in 1939 for Glasgow.

Joan studied drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Art, under the direction of influential Scottish artist Hugh Adam Crawford. There her skills developed remarkably. In 1943 she received a diploma in drawing and painting, and the Sir James Guthrie Prize for Portraiture.