Joan Eardley

Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley (18 May 192116 August 1963) was a British artist noted for her portraiture of street children in Glasgow and for her landscapes of the fishing village of Catterline and surroundings on the North-East coast of Scotland. One of Scotland's most enduringly popular artists, her career was cut short by breast cancer. Her artistic career had three distinct phases. The first was from 1940 when she enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art through to 1949 when she had a successful exhibition of paintings created while travelling in Italy. From 1950 to 1957, Eardley's work focused on the city of Glasgow and in particular the slum area of Townhead. In the late 1950s, while still living in Glasgow, she spent much time in Catterline before moving there permanently in 1961. During the last years of her life, seascapes and landscapes painted in and around Catterline dominated her output. Later in the war he fought in the trenches on the Western Front, was wounded in a gas attack and suffered shell-shock. The couple married at the end of the war, but Captain Eardley experienced episodes of depression and suffered a mental breakdown during Joan's early childhood. After the failure, and subsequent sale, of his farm in 1926, Captain Eardley worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and Joan's mother took her and her younger sister, Pat, (1922–2013), to live with her own mother in Blackheath, London. In 1929 Captain Eardley died by suicide, although the details of his death were not explained to Joan and Pat until they were in their teens, years later.

Eardley trained at the local art school in Blackheath for two terms, and in 1938 enrolled at Goldsmiths College which she attended for one term. In 1939 Eardley, her mother and her sister moved to Glasgow to live with her mother's relatives in Bearsden, after a short period with other relatives in Auchterarder. She met the painter Margot Sandeman, who became a close and lifelong friend. Sandeman and Eardley would often paint together and also shared family holidays and camping trips. In 1941, they acquired a horse and caravan and travelled around Loch Lomond to paint and sketch. For many years, they also visited Corrie on the Isle of Arran, using an outhouse, "The Tabernacle", as a studio. Her biographer Christopher Andreae notes it as nevertheless a remarkably informal picture, a precursor to the charcoal studies she made in Italy and these in turn a preparation for her many drawing, pastels and paintings of Glasgow street children. The prize, a biography of Guthrie by Sir James L. Caw and published by Macmillan & Co. of London in 1932, is still in the possession of Eardley's family.

After graduating in 1943 Eardley trained as a teacher at Jordanhill Teacher Training College, but she never liked classroom teaching and left after one term. Eardley went back to London for a short time and, during 1947, spent time in Lincoln working on a mural commission for a school. She returned to Scotland to continue her studies in 1947 at Hospitalfield House, in Arbroath under James Cowie, who influenced her choice of everyday subject matter. In September 1948 she travelled by boat and train to Florence. There she saw many works by Italian Renaissance artists and in particular she admired fresco cycles by Giotto, by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel and also works by Piero della Francesca. She valued these artists' humanity and the sculptural aspects of their work. She visited churches and monasteries in Assisi before visiting Forte dei Marmi in November 1948. Eardley portrays the beggars gathered there with the same tenderness and sympathy she was later to bring to bear portraying the lives of the disenfranchised in the tenements of Glasgow. On her return to Scotland in 1949 she mounted an exhibition, effectively her first solo exhibition, of work done in Italy, including a number of striking scenes of peasants, beggars, children and old women. The twelve children of the Samson family were among her regular subjects. These images became the basis of several oil paintings of groups of children. Documentary photographer Oscar Marzaroli admired her art, and took pictures of the Samson family in her studio. Eardley started to spend part of each year away from Glasgow in Catterline, until 1961 when the small village became her permanent home. For both her seascapes and landscapes, Eardley created series of works, often showing the same view but in different light and weather conditions, including in storm conditions. To Summer Fields (c.1961) Eardley added grass pieces to the paint surface while Harvest (1960–61) includes elements of grit. She usually worked outdoors and often in poor weather, sometimes in snowstorms or gale-force winds. When she heard of a storm approaching the coast, Eardley would travel by train from Glasgow to Stonehaven and then ride her Lambretta to Catterline.

In 1955 Eardley became an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1963 she was elected a full member of the academy. The same year an exhibition of her work was held in London, but she was too ill to attend. When the two were not together, Eardley would write to Walker on a near daily basis and the letters show Eardley's intense love for Walker. Although the letters were released with the agreement of both the Eardley and Walker family estates, their publication was criticized in some quarters.

Legacy Eardley's work was already highly acclaimed by many in Britain by the time of her death. She had produced over 300 paintings and 1400 sketches, now in galleries or private collections.

According to Dr Janet McKenzie of the National Galleries of Scotland, Eardley's untimely death "meant that she was never given the stature she deserved. Her work deserves to be compared to Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Lucian Freud".

In 2017, Historic Environment Scotland awarded a plaque to commemorate Eardley. It can be found at No. 1 South Row, Catterline, Stonehaven.

In 2026, a lost Eardley painting Summer Fields (c. 1961), discovered in an East Midlands charity shop, was sold for £29,500 following its authentication by The Scottish Gallery which had originally sold the work.

Memberships Eardley was a member of or affiliated with the following organisations: 1948: Professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists 1955: Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy 1963: Elected full member of the Royal Scottish Academy 1963: Honorary member of Glasgow Society of Lady Artists' Club

Exhibitions Exhibitions of her work held during Eardley's life included: 1948: An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings of Italy made by a Travelling Scholar at the School, Joan Eardley, Glasgow 2026: Joan Eardley: The Nature of Painting, National Galleries of Scotland