Joan Eardley

Joan Eardley
Self-portrait, 1943
Born	Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley 18 May 1921 Warnham, West Sussex, England.
Died	16 August 1963
Awards	Sir James Guthrie Prize
Elected	Royal Scottish Academy (1963)

Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley (18 May 1921 – 16 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 tragically cut short by breast cancer.

Joan Eardley was born in Warnham, Sussex, where her parents were dairy farmers. Her mother, Irene Morrison, was Scottish. Joan had a sister, Patricia, who was born in 1922 and died in 2013. 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 nine he took his own life. 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 for a short time, 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.

In 1940 Eardley enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art as a day student where she studied under Hugh Adam Crawford and was influenced by the Scottish Colourists. She met painter Margot Sandeman, who became a close friend. In 1943 she was awarded a diploma in drawing and painting, and won the Sir James Guthrie Prize for portraiture. 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 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 a 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 and 1949, six months in fact. During this time she saw many works by Italian Renaissance artists in particular she admired 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, kids and old women.

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