Online Exhibition
This digital online exhibition marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Joan Eardley (1921-1963), one of the most important artists in 20th-century Scottish art.
Eardley’s work represents her extraordinary range and inventiveness in figuration and landscape in the pivotal post-war period of Scottish art. It crosses the boundaries between realism and abstraction and strongly identifies with a particular place where she chose to live and work.
This online selection concentrates on rarely-seen drawings and works on paper by Joan Eardley in the collection of Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums. These works came into our collection as a generous gift from the artist’s sister, Pat Black, in 1987.
They reveal so much of Eardley’s techniques and her approach to the visible world; how she captured the fleeting motion of a group of children playing in a street or the changing colours of a stormy sky. She achieved all this within a very small space and with the minimal means of pen, pencil, crayon or pastel on paper. They are private drawings for her own reference and their instantaneous quality says a lot about the artist herself.
We hope that this selection of drawings will pique your interest and encourage you to come and look at Joan Eardley’s works that are currently on display in Aberdeen Art Gallery. You can find works by Joan Eardley on display in Gallery 1 - Collecting Art, Gallery 7 - Exploring Art and Gallery 18 - People and Portrait.
Image: 'Sarah's Cottage' by Joan Eardley © the Eardley estate. All rights reserved, DACS 2021.
