Lot 172
JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1921-1963) §
BOYS PLAYING CARDS
£11,340
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 103-196 | Thursday 05 December from 6pm
Description
Oil on board
Dimensions
23cm x 23cm (9in x 9in)
Provenance
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Joan Eardley - Paintings and Drawings, 1996, no.13
Footnote
Joan Eardley’s exceptional skills of observation, technique and affinity with both people and nature is clear in the selection of paintings and works on paper presented here. They reveal how she worked sensitively and spontaneously from the city to the countryside and include examples of her celebrated portrayals of the Townhead district of Glasgow and of the fishing village of Catterline on Scotland’s north-east coast.
Eardley maintained a studio at 204 St James Road in Townhead from 1952 until her premature death in 1963. She became a regular sight in its somewhat rundown streets, sketching buildings, people and scenes of daily life in chalk and pastel, which she then worked up into paintings in the studio. She was drawn to the neighbourhood’s vibrancy and close-knit community and soon established a rapport with the local children, some of whom she would pay a modest fee for sitting for her.
Quickly executed pastels, such as Little Girl, Girl in Striped Jersey and The Striped Skirt illustrate Eardley’s unsentimental approach to her young subjects. They are caught in unselfconscious poses and with natural facial expressions, with particular emphasis paid to the colour and pattern of their clothing. Eardley’s mixed use of pastel, from confident outline to curling gesture and smudged fields of contrasting tones, gives a sense of the energy and moment of the creative process which celebrates but does not sugarcoat childhood.
In paintings including Boy in Blue Jersey and Boys Playing Cards a deeper, more contemplative atmosphere is suggested. In the former, the young model is portrayed in a moment of thought, hands clasped together and head tilted to look at something beyond the viewer’s sight. In Boys Playing Cards an air of concentration is focussed on the boy seen in profile, perhaps as he plans his next move, rather than presenting the whole game and all its participants.
In 1952, Eardley visited Catterline for the first time. It became a new stimulus where she could depict the immensities of nature in the open air, painting and sketching ‘on the spot’ in all seasons and weathers. She bought a cottage there in 1955 and thereafter divided her time between the village and Glasgow.
Eardley immersed herself into the community and its way of life. The activities of its working harbour provided rich subject matter, as seen in Salmon Fishing Nets – Study. As Patrick Elliott has explained: ‘…the salmon-fishing season on Scotland’s east coast lasted from 16 February until 31 August…in order to conserve stocks, the fishermen were required by law to remove the long nets by noon on the Saturday and were not permitted to replace them before 6am on the following Monday. The long nets were cleaned and dried on the stony beach on the Saturday afternoon….the nets were hung up on the Makin Green, a rough grassy patch near the salmon bothy, on giant larch poles five or six metres tall.’ (Patrick Elliott, Joan Eardley: Land & Sea – A Life in Catterline, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2021, pp.107 & 111). Executed in pastel, Eardley joined three sheets of support in order to complete the current composition.
In Stacks and Setting Sun I Eardley turned her eye to the surrounding fields to capture the fruition of the farming year as the day drew to a close. This time executed in oil on board, her expressive technique verges on abstraction, albeit anchored with figurative elements such as the fencing at the lower left. Eardley’s powerful response to the quickly changing scene before her is clear in the energetic brushstrokes and depiction of the fading, warm tones of sunlight.
Whether working in the city or in the countryside, Eardley position as one of Britain’s leading twentieth-century artists is assured.
