Joan Eardley
Encyclopedia
Joan Eardley was a British
artist.
Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley was born in Warnham
, Sussex, England where her parents were dairy farmers. Her mother, Irene Morrison, was Scottish. Joan had a sister, Patricia, born in 1922. Their father suffered a mental breakdown during the girls' early childhood, having been wounded in a gas attack during World War I
; when Joan was seven he committed suicide. Joan's mother then took the two girls to live with her own mother in Blackheath
, London in 1929 An aunt paid for the girls' education at a private school, where Joan's artistic talent was first recognised.
Eardley trained at the local art school in Blackheath, and in 1938 enrolled at Goldsmiths College
. In 1939 she, her mother and her sister moved to Glasgow to live with her mother's relatives in Bearsden
and in 1940 Eardley enrolled at Glasgow School of Art as a day student. She studied under Hugh Adam Crawford and was influenced by the Scottish Colourists
In 1943 she was awarded a diploma in drawing and painting, and won the Sir James Guthrie Prize for portraiture. After graduating Eardley trained as a teacher, but she never liked classroom teaching and chose instead to work with a joiner and also went back to London for short time. She continued her studies in 1947 at Hospitalfield House
, Arbroath
under James Cowie, who influenced her choice of everyday subject matter. A scholarship enabled her to travel to Italy and France for a year in 1948-9. During this time she saw many works by Italian Renaissance
artists she admired, in particular fresco cycles by Masaccio
and Piero della Francesca
. She valued these artists' humanity and the sculptural aspects of their work. On her return to Scotland in 1949 she mounted an exhibition of work done in Italy, including a number of striking scenes of peasants, beggars and old women.
Eardley set up a studio in Glasgow, close to the deprived Townhead area, where she became known for her drawings and paintings of poor city children, often playing in the streets in ragged clothes, the older girls looking after younger siblings. She also drew numerous scenes of the shipyards of Port Glasgow. Eardley had developed a unique style and she soon had a reputation as a highly individual, realistic and humane artist of urban life. She was often to be seen transporting her easel and paints around Glasgow in an old pram.
In the early 1950s while convalescing from mumps Eardley was taken by a friend to visit Catterline
, a small fishing village near Stonehaven
, then in Kincardineshire
(now Aberdeenshire
). Her friend Annette Stephen bought her a cottage there and she started to spend part of each year away from Glasgow in Catterline. Eardley bought another more suitable, but still basic cottage there in 1954; it had no electricity, running water or sanitation. At Catterline she produced seascapes, often showing the same view but in different light and weather conditions. She also painted landscapes showing the changing seasons in the fields around the village, her thickly textured paintwork sometimes incorporating real pieces of vegetation. She often worked outdoors and often in poor weather. Eardley became the focus of the "Catterline School" of artists, a group who were increasingly drawn to the village during the 1950s and who included Annette Soper, Angus Neil and Lil Neilson.
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 she opened an exhibition at the London Museum.
Eardley's work was already highly acclaimed by many in Britain by the time of her death. Since then she has been recognised as an artist of international importance, although not universally. A retrospective exhibition held in Edinburgh
in 1988 was hosted by the Talbot Rice Gallery
and the Royal Scottish Academy
, the then director of the National Galleries of Scotland
having declined the opportunity to mark the 25th anniversary of her death. A National Galleries of Scotland retrospective was finally held in 2007-8. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
has many of her works.
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
, Lucien Freud.' For Guy Peploe, 'There was a desperate urgency to her work. It was almost as if she knew that she was not going to be the grand lady of Scottish art.' Murdo Macdonald says of Eardley's Catterline seascapes: '[S]he committed herself to understanding the sea more than any other painter since McTaggart
in the 1890s. Rather than just responding to the attraction of the coastline, she painted with the perception of a mariner aware that waves are heavy, fast moving lumps of water, as able to kill as to support. In this she reinvigorated a maritime trend in Scottish art...' Her biographer Cordelia Oliver observed that, 'for her a truly successful painting had to go deeper than a mere visual record, no matter how accurate... [H]er success lay in her ability to combine the acute, uncompromising painter's eye with a warm human sympathy and understanding'.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
artist.
Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley was born in Warnham
Warnham
Warnham is a village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England. The village is some three kilometres north west of central Horsham to the west of the A24 road...
, Sussex, England where her parents were dairy farmers. Her mother, Irene Morrison, was Scottish. Joan had a sister, Patricia, born in 1922. Their father suffered a mental breakdown during the girls' early childhood, having been wounded in a gas attack during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; when Joan was seven he committed suicide. Joan's mother then took the two girls to live with her own mother in Blackheath
Blackheath
Blackheath is the name of a number of places:*Blackheath, London, England**Blackheath, Kent *Blackheath, Surrey, England**Blackheath, Surrey *Blackheath, West Midlands, England*Blackheath, New South Wales, Australia...
, London in 1929 An aunt paid for the girls' education at a private school, where Joan's artistic talent was first recognised.
Eardley trained at the local art school in Blackheath, and in 1938 enrolled at Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
. In 1939 she, her mother and her sister moved to Glasgow to live with her mother's relatives in Bearsden
Bearsden
Bearsden ) is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the northwestern fringe of Greater Glasgow, approximately from the City Centre, and is effectively a suburb, with housing development coinciding with the introduction of a railway line in 1863, and from where the town gets its name...
and in 1940 Eardley enrolled at Glasgow School of Art as a day student. She studied under Hugh Adam Crawford and was influenced by the Scottish Colourists
Scottish Colourists
The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art....
In 1943 she was awarded a diploma in drawing and painting, and won the Sir James Guthrie Prize for portraiture. After graduating Eardley trained as a teacher, but she never liked classroom teaching and chose instead to work with a joiner and also went back to London for short time. She continued her studies in 1947 at Hospitalfield House
Hospitalfield House
Hospitalfield House is an arts centre and historic house in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland regarded as "one of the finest country houses in Scotland". It is believed to be "Scotland's first school of fine art" and the first art college in Britain...
, Arbroath
Arbroath
Arbroath or Aberbrothock is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the council area of Angus in Scotland, and has a population of 22,785...
under James Cowie, who influenced her choice of everyday subject matter. A scholarship enabled her to travel to Italy and France for a year in 1948-9. During this time she saw many works by Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
artists she admired, in particular fresco cycles by Masaccio
Masaccio
Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...
and Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
. She valued these artists' humanity and the sculptural aspects of their work. On her return to Scotland in 1949 she mounted an exhibition of work done in Italy, including a number of striking scenes of peasants, beggars and old women.
Eardley set up a studio in Glasgow, close to the deprived Townhead area, where she became known for her drawings and paintings of poor city children, often playing in the streets in ragged clothes, the older girls looking after younger siblings. She also drew numerous scenes of the shipyards of Port Glasgow. Eardley had developed a unique style and she soon had a reputation as a highly individual, realistic and humane artist of urban life. She was often to be seen transporting her easel and paints around Glasgow in an old pram.
In the early 1950s while convalescing from mumps Eardley was taken by a friend to visit Catterline
Catterline
Catterline is a coastal village on the North Sea in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is situated about six kilometres south of Stonehaven; nearby to the north are Dunnottar Castle and Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve. Other noted architectural or historic features in the general area include Fetteresso...
, a small fishing village near Stonehaven
Stonehaven
Stonehaven is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It lies on Scotland's northeast coast and had a population of 9,577 in 2001 census.Stonehaven, county town of Kincardineshire, grew around an Iron Age fishing village, now the "Auld Toon" , and expanded inland from the seaside...
, then in Kincardineshire
Kincardineshire
The County of Kincardine, also known as Kincardineshire or The Mearns was a local government county on the coast of northeast Scotland...
(now Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area.The present day Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, now a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city formed historic...
). Her friend Annette Stephen bought her a cottage there and she started to spend part of each year away from Glasgow in Catterline. Eardley bought another more suitable, but still basic cottage there in 1954; it had no electricity, running water or sanitation. At Catterline she produced seascapes, often showing the same view but in different light and weather conditions. She also painted landscapes showing the changing seasons in the fields around the village, her thickly textured paintwork sometimes incorporating real pieces of vegetation. She often worked outdoors and often in poor weather. Eardley became the focus of the "Catterline School" of artists, a group who were increasingly drawn to the village during the 1950s and who included Annette Soper, Angus Neil and Lil Neilson.
In 1955 Eardley became an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy
Royal Scottish Academy
The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...
and in 1963 she was elected a full member of the academy.. The same year she opened an exhibition at the London Museum.
Death and legacy
Eardley was diagnosed with breast cancer which spread to the brain causing great pain but did not accept treatment. She was cared for by friends and died at Killearn Hospital in August 1963 at the age of 42. Her ashes were scattered on Catterline beach.Eardley's work was already highly acclaimed by many in Britain by the time of her death. Since then she has been recognised as an artist of international importance, although not universally. A retrospective exhibition held in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
in 1988 was hosted by the Talbot Rice Gallery
Talbot Rice Gallery
The Talbot Rice Gallery is part of the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland and was established in 1975. It takes its name from David Talbot Rice, the Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh from 1934–1972....
and the Royal Scottish Academy
Royal Scottish Academy
The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...
, the then director of the National Galleries of Scotland
National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland are the five national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries. It is one of the country's National Collections.-List of national galleries:* The National Gallery of Scotland* The Royal Scottish Academy Building...
having declined the opportunity to mark the 25th anniversary of her death. A National Galleries of Scotland retrospective was finally held in 2007-8. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, holds the national collection of modern art. When opened in 1960, the collection was held in Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Gardens...
has many of her works.
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
Frank Auerbach
Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
, David Bomberg
David Bomberg
David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...
, Lucien Freud.' For Guy Peploe, 'There was a desperate urgency to her work. It was almost as if she knew that she was not going to be the grand lady of Scottish art.' Murdo Macdonald says of Eardley's Catterline seascapes: '[S]he committed herself to understanding the sea more than any other painter since McTaggart
McTaggart
McTaggart is a surname of Scottish or Ultonian origin. It is an Anglicisation of the Gaelic Mac an t-Sagairt, meaning "son of the priest". Also having the forms MacTaggart and Taggart...
in the 1890s. Rather than just responding to the attraction of the coastline, she painted with the perception of a mariner aware that waves are heavy, fast moving lumps of water, as able to kill as to support. In this she reinvigorated a maritime trend in Scottish art...' Her biographer Cordelia Oliver observed that, 'for her a truly successful painting had to go deeper than a mere visual record, no matter how accurate... [H]er success lay in her ability to combine the acute, uncompromising painter's eye with a warm human sympathy and understanding'.