Exhibitor Museum of Modern art Edinburgh
Ardley developed a special
understanding of children in poverty in Townhead tenement streets of Glasgow.
She built up her images with layers of colour
– in oils, watercolour and pastels.
Later she lived in a cottage in Catterline – on the east coast south of
Aberdeen.. Some of her later images
display more depth.
An exhibition worth visiting.
One of the pre-eminent British artists
of the 20th Century”
The Times
The Times
Joan Eardley’s career
lasted barely fifteen years: she died in 1963, aged just forty-two. During that
time she concentrated on two very different themes: the extraordinarily candid
paintings of children in the Townhead area of Glasgow; and paintings of the
fishing village of Catterline, just south of Aberdeen, with its leaden skies
and wild sea. These two contrasting strands are the focus of this exhibition,
which looks in detail at her working process. It draws on a remarkable archive
of sketches and photographs which remains largely unknown and unpublished.
The exhibition also
features many loans from public and private collections, allowing the viewer to
trace specific developments between the photographs, the drawings and the
finished paintings.
Image: Joan Eardley, Children and
Chalked Wall 2, 1963
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal © Estate of Joan Eardley. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal © Estate of Joan Eardley. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016