Joan Eardley
(18 May 1921 - 16 August 1963) |
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seascapes, landscapes Art Work
| Name: |
Joan Eardley |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
Wanham, Sussex, England |
| Nationality: |
British |
| Birth: |
18 May 1921 |
| Death: |
16 August 1963 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
seascapes, landscapes |
| Medium: |
oil painting |
| Method: |
oil painting |
| Style: |
Abstract Expressionist |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
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Biography
Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley was born in Sussex, England, but spent much of her career in Scotland. The scenes of Glasgow, where she settled, became a great source of inspiration for the artist.
As a student at Glasgow School of Art, Joan Eardley's promise was noted, and she was awarded the James Guthrie Prize for portraiture. On a travelling scholarship to Italy and France for six months in 1948-9, she admired the work of Massacio, Fra Angelico and Giotto. Her own paintings and drawings focused on peasants, and the weight of their presence and the expressive, almost clumsy line with which they are described recalls van Gogh. The life of the poor runs as a constant theme through her art as she travelled back from Italy to the streets and tenements of Glasgow. Eardley worked in the most deprived areas of Glasgow Townhead, Greenock and Port Glasgow, and described her motivation, "The character of Glasgow lies with its back streets where the people are, something that's real."
She also taught at Glasgow School of Art. From this period a body of work emerged in which the lives of the neighborhood children took centre stage. Eardley captures the painful awkwardness, and the exuberance, of childhood. These are not sentimental, simplistic images. In contrast to the gawky, boisterous cheek of her street children at play there are portraits of a daughter of the Sampson family of Townhead, who appears in Little Girl with a Squint.
Some of her paintings performs the dual role of having a strong formal function within the structure of the work, while forcefully reminding us of the stuff of everyday life. For several of the writers on the artist, painting and personal appearance were to read as signs of masculine or feminine identity, and both Eardley and her work were troubling. Nevertheless, she received the accolade of election to the Royal Scottish Academy. |
Samples of Work
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