Scottish Art

Joan Eardley: The Deep Importance of People & Place

22 May 2025

Lyon & Turnbull

Mapping Joan Eardley's movements across Scotland and relationships throughout her life, our 05 June flagship Scottish Paintings & Sculpture auction features both fine works of her best known subjects to less common, but equally significant examples.

Originally hailing from Sussex, Joan Eardley and her family moved to Scotland when she was a teenager, and her adopted country became her predominant and enduring source of inspiration. Famously, her work is intrinsically tied to the locations of Townhead in Glasgow and Catterline village in Angus.

Scottish Paintings & Sculpture

Explore our flagship Thursday 05 June auction.

The Deep Importance of People & Place

Join Senior Specialist Charlotte Riordan and Head of Sale Nick Curnow as they discuss Eardley's life and works.

JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1921-1963)

BLUE JERSEY

Pastel on glass paper

27cm x 22cm (10.5in x 8.5in)

£20,000 - £30,000 + fees

Of all her subject matter, Eardley’s sensitive depictions of the local children in Glasgow are arguably her best loved images, and probably her most famous. She favoured some sitters over others - those brimming with character that were able to sit naturalistically. The Samson family lived in Rottenrow, round the corner from her studio. The twelve siblings lived in extreme poverty in a two-roomed flat. They loved to pose for the ‘unusual’, ‘kind’ Eardley, whose studio was always warmed by a potbellied stove and who distributed cheese and syrup sandwiches, sweets and sixpences to her keen sitters.

The two children who appear in the exquisite drawing offered here are very likely members of the Samson family. This little pair recur as a repeat study by Eardley in a handful of drawings. The little boy in the blue jumper - his short thatch of hair captured in cross-hatched lines - is cradled in the arms of his older sister, who clasps her hands protectively around his middle. Eardley, both to her credit as regards the dignity of her sitters, and favourably in terms of the longevity of her imagery, assiduously favoured truth over sentimentality. Nonetheless there is an unavoidable sense of pathos in the truth contained within this image. Though her expression is merely a suggestion, the little girl glances down, the heavy weight of responsibility for her younger sibling palpable. It is a fine, highly resolved example of Eardley’s Townhead studies of a scale that is scarce to market.

JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1921-1963)

JEANNIE

Signed, gouache, pen and chalk

38cm x 26.75cm (15in x 10.5cm)

£40,000 - £60,000 + fees

Less well known, but nonetheless of significance within Joan’s work, is a connection to the Isle of Arran. Though it is unrecorded exactly when and on how many occasions Eardley visited Arran, it is known that her painting excursions there were made during her years as a student at the Glasgow School of Art in the early 1940s, at the invitation of her friend and fellow artist Margot Sandeman. Sandeman came from an artistic family and had frequented Arran all her life. The creative and emotional companionship which she extended on these trips was of great significance to Eardley. Their friendship would endure until the latter’s early death in 1963.

While on Arran, the two women stayed in a tiny vernacular building known as the ‘Tabernacle’, rented from a Mrs Kelso. Mrs Kelso’s relative lived next door, and ‘Wee Jeannie’, as she was known, swiftly became drawn into Eardley’s orbit, both as a friend and an artistic muse. Endeared by her down-to-earth manner and ‘couthy’ sense of humour, Jeannie became an integral part of Arran’s appeal to the young Eardley. She sketched her on several occasions, often, as in the work offered here, in a basic but cosily cluttered cottage interior. This is a wonderful and scarce example of this early period of her career.

Eardley is known for sensitive observational studies of poorer and more vulnerable members of society. Never objectifying, this subject matter must rather be regarded as a reflection of her compassion and deep humanity. In this work we see Jeannie in repose in a wooden chair, surveying the artist with reciprocal intent, a reflection, perhaps, of the unencumbered directness of her personality, as well as her comfort in Eardley’s presence. Sheets of newspaper cover the windowpanes behind her, shielding the interior from the worst of the draughts that constantly sought a way in. A jumble of tea-time paraphernalia sits to her side on an old tea chest. This example showcases Eardley’s facility across media, in this case pen, ink, chalk and gouache. Her student works, including the Arran sketches, are characterised by a strong sense of draughtsmanship which showcase the confident solidity of line for which she was to become known. Additionally, one sees the burgeoning use of strong colour. The vivid ultramarine blue used here would later recur in her work.

Scratchy pen marks and the scumbling texture of her chalks readily describe the dilapidated and threadbare essence of the interior and Jeannie’s clothes, yet the highlights of bold colour work remind us of her artistic place as a modernist.

FISHING NETS, CATTERLINE

With the Artist's Estate number EE125 inscribed verso, oil on board

98cm x 168cm (38.5in x 66.25in)

£30,000 - £50,000 + fees

It was another pivotal friendship that led Eardley to the discovery of Catterline in Aberdeenshire. Her friend Annette Soper, a local teacher and artist in the Stonehaven area, was hosting Eardley whilst she convalesced from the mumps. On a drive down the coast, the pair stumbled across the tiny fishing village. Shortly after, Soper would go on to purchase the Watch House, a cottage set apart from the rest of the village on the clifftop, as a place for her and Eardley to paint. From 1952 she gave Eardley free rein to use the cottage, which Eardley duly did, dividing her time between Catterline and Glasgow thereafter. In 1955 she purchased No.1 South Row herself, which she renovated with the assistance of Angus Neil. This marked the beginning of a significant shift in her artwork in what would tragically be the final decade of her life.

‘In order to get an idea of how Eardley responded to the landscape one has to remember that Hugh Adam Crawford (at The Glasgow School of Art) had taught his students to feel their painting in their bodies.’ explains curator Fiona Pearson in the exhibition catalogue for her 2007 retrospective of Eardley at the National Galleries of Scotland. ‘In response to the huge expanses of sea and sky, Eardley’s works become physically larger and more imposing.’ The monumental oil represented above, Fishing Nets, Catterline, attests to this.

Painted c.1962, Eardley’s later oils have an almost semiabstract quality. Fishing Nets, Catterline is divided by the compositional ‘rule of thirds’, with the grey sky looming densely over the ragged twists of netting, which are staked into the muddy ground of the foreshore. The palette is exaggeratedly earthy and the brushwork expressive and highly gestural. The tenacious Eardley gave up doing battle with the elements, instead choosing to immerse herself within them; weighting her canvases down with rocks and tying herself to the easel, allowing the storms to do their worst as she scraped with her palette knife and dribbled paint with the wet end of her brush. This extraordinary visual image of Eardley - quite literally in her element - becomes intrinsically linked with one’s appreciation of her Catterline oils.

JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1921-1963)

STREET SCENE

Found in the Artist's former house at No.1 South Row, Catterline in 1967, when the property was purchased by the grandmother of the present owner

Oil on canvas, laid down

72.5cm x 53cm (28.5in x 20.75in)

£7,000 - £10,000 + fees

JOAN EARDLEY R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1921-1963)

CHILDREN IN A DOORWAY, TOWNHEAD

Pastel and charcoal

12.5cm x 16.5cm (5in x 6in)

£6,000 - £8,000 + fees

Another key figure in Eardley’s life was the talented yet erratic Angus Neil (1924-92). A former soldier and joiner, Neil met Eardley during their studies at Hospitalfield in Arbroath in 1947. Eardley was drawn to Neil’s sense of humour and practicality. Across their long friendship, Neil would stay with her for protracted periods in her Townhead studio and Catterline cottage, painting alongside her and – helpfully - warding off unwanted attention during sketching excursions into more dangerous parts of the city. Eardley was also sensitive to his mental health struggles and tolerant of his sometimes challenging behaviour and violent outbursts. Like Sandeman, Neil would be a lifelong companion.

Neil was known to have struggled greatly after the loss of his stalwart friend Eardley to cancer, even being sectioned at one point in Montrose Psychiatric Hospital. He was dependent for a time on the charity and care of members of his circle, notably the artist Carole Gibbons, as well as the local medical community. Lyon & Turnbull are delighted to present to market select works from one of Eardley’s sketchbooks, gifted by Neil to a caring local doctor in Glasgow in the 1960s who gave him room and board during a breakdown. The sketchbook has been much treasured by descendants within the doctor’s family. It gives a wonderful insight into Eardley’s oeuvre, containing representations of virtually every subject one might associate with her: from studies of children to cityscapes and shorelines; all excellent examples of her astute observational skills and intuitive mark-making ability, as well as her astounding consistency of quality.

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