Neglected for painting Scotland: the Englishwoman overlooked in the art world because of her 鈥榡oyful鈥� work north of the border
18 September 2018
From poverty-stricken city slums to the windswept north east coast, artist Joan Eardley captured two very different aspects of 20th Century Scotland.
Sussex-born Eardley graduated from Glasgow School of Art and began her career painting the residents of the city’s poorer tenements.
She was later drawn to the village of Catterline in Aberdeenshire, where she captured the wild weather and rural landscapes of the north east coast.
Artist Lachlan Goudie is an admirer of Eardley’s “extraordinary” collection of Catterline paintings.
“They feel to me to be some of her most personal images and they’re also jam-packed full of joy”, he said.
Joan Eardley's Catterline paintings
Joan Eardley's beautiful depictions of the seaside village of Catterline
Deserving of praise
Eardley’s career ended prematurely when she died in 1963, aged 42.
Goudie believes her determination to concentrate on this corner of Scotland may have prevented her receiving deserved posthumous praise.
“I have the sense that because her subjects and her career were so specific to Scotland, her wider importance has been neglected.”
He argues that Eardley is significant because she marked a moment of change, when artists turned away from the colorful painting traditions of the continent and became excited by “the expressive anxiety of a more northern tradition”.
Who was Joan Eardley?
Joan鈥檚 art and its influence
On 大象传媒 iPlayer
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The Story of Scottish Art
Artist Lachlan Goudie traces the development of Scottish art from the Neolithic Era to the present day.
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