JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A (1921-1963)
ANDREW WITH A COMIC
£82,000
Auction: 8 December 2000 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Signed, oil on canvas,
92cm(36in) x 77cm(30in)
Footnote
Exhibited: Aitken Dott & Son, Festival Exhibition 1955, no.3
Sheffield City Art Gallery, Forgotten Fifties 1984, no.22
Talbot Rice Gallery, Joan Eardley Retrospective 1988, no.57
Arts Council, London, Joan Eardley Retrospective 1989, no.57
Glasgow Museum & Art Gallery 1989
Literature:William Buchanan, Joan Eardley, 1976, pp.33,
Note:'From her student years at Glasgow School of Art Joan Eardley had found much of her subject matter around her in the streets. But it was in the early 1950s that she found the studio in Glasgow's Townhead which would provide her with subject matter for much of her short life- the other half being spent at Catterline on the North Sea coast of Kincardineshire. The Glasgow studio was a space above a corner shop which had become a metal store,its scarlet painted walls forever covered with graffitti. Originally a photographer's studio, it was glass-roofed, baking hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter months, but the light was wonderful.
More importantly ,the street below was teeming with subject matter - youngsters from the neighbouring tenements. They came in all ages and sizes, but Eardley made friends with one family in particular, the Samsons, a clan of eight or nine growing up over the six or seven yearsof Joan's painting lifeat Townhead. Andrew, the eldest Samson boy, was her favourite, and in this wonderfully vibrant painting - see the skinny knees in the ubiquitous Welligtons and the eager attitude - he is seen catching up with Deperate Dan, maybe, and snatching a 'piece' and a glass of lemonade before dashing out to join the rest of the gang at play in the street below. A very familiar scene at the time, before the days of computer games. Andrew would have sat for this painting in the studio, however, and it seems likely that, after quickly laying in the image on the canvas while the boy was sitting, Joan would afterwards have worked from several of the quick pastel sketches at which she was adept. The end result is wonderfully vibrant.
We are endebted to Cordelia Oliver for this appreciation. Provenance: Lady Naomi Mitchison