Vibrant and varied, Joan Eardley is well worth seeing for the artist’s influence on Scottish painting and for the expressive nature of her work, before it closes on January 13thIt is ironic that one of the most famous Scottish painters of the twentieth century was an Englishwoman. Born in Sussex to a Scottish mother, Joan Eardley studied at Glasgow School of Art, and later made Scotland her home, coming to depict an essential sense of place, whether through the apple cheeked weans of Glasgow’s slums or the tempestuous coastline of the North East. The spacious and airy galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy building provide an excellent setting for the first major show of Eardley’s work in twenty years, and the largest to date, allowing each piece to command the full attention it deserves.The chronological organization of the show gives a clear idea of her influences and the development of her work. Beginning with some of her earliest student paintings, we see the involvement in a sense of place and her interest in the poor and the vulnerable, which carry through her subsequent work. Following this, the show is divided mainly between her iconic paintings of children in the slums of the East End of Glasgow, and landscapes. In the final room, her sources are presented: many sketches; photographs she took of children at play around Glasgow; press clippings and postcards. Panels of information in each room allow you to trace the specific elements influencing the development of her work.By far the strongest part of the show is the later landscape paintings. At times semi-abstract and influenced by the American abstract expressionists and European tashisme, they have a wonderfully vital quality. One room shows seascapes painted near the village of Catterline, whose surrounding area proved a treasure trove of landscapes for Eardley. These are responses both to the natural environment and to paint – expressing the qualities of both. They contrast the weight, texture and density of the oil paint to catch the ever-changing quality of the North Sea: the stillness after storms, and the breakers on the shore. The landscapes painted around Catterline show a similar energy, capturing the colour and tactile character of the Scottish landscape through the seasons, from the minute variations of dry fields during winter to the brightness of autumn sunsets. Embedded in many paintings are the stems, grasses and flowers of the landscape, blending into their painted counterparts and adding to the rich texture of the works, foreshadowing her use of collage in her last paintings.In recording the effects of the changing seasons on the landscape, she depicted the same scene again and again. In such repetition, the progression of her style is most apparent. For example, from a seminal trip to London in 1957, the influence of Kandinsky’s early abstraction can be seen in the development of her own semi-abstract style. This influence is particularly evident in comparing “Drying Salmon Nets” of 1955 and the later, more abstract “Salmon Net Posts”, 1962,In 1963, Eardley’s career was tragically cut short at the age of forty-two by her death from cancer. The final works provide a tantalising glimpse of the way in which her style might have developed. Combining the children that we see in her Glasgow paintings with the abstract expressionist and collaging influences of her landscapes at Catterline, these last paintings are far looser. We are left to wonder whether her style would have later drifted into full abstraction (in her words to a friend ‘getting rid of the children altogether’) or developed in other unforeseen ways. by Hannah Dingwall
Exhibition Review: Joan Eardley at the RSA, Edinburgh
