Cornerstone No . 184 , page 16
Great Scot ! 60 : Joan Eardley
This Great ‘ Scot ’ shares a distinction with GSs 19 and 33 ( resp . Eric Liddel and Elsie Inglis ) in that the subject , although truly Scottish , was born in foreign parts ...
Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley , future ‘ humanistic ’ artist , was born in Warnham
( West Sussex ) on May 18th , 1921 . Her family were dairy farmers and her mother a true Scot of maiden name Morrison . ‘ Aah ’ you may exclaim , ‘ a healthy occupation in a bucolic and fresh-air part of the country !’ Things did not work out like that for Joan and her younger sister , for their father , gassed in the WWI conflict , suffered a nervous breakdown and subsequently committed suicide . Joan was nine years old . Mother moved the family to Blackheath thus from bucolia , into ‘ The Smoke ’. Although this may seem a step downwards there was money in the South – if you are in the right place ( s ) – and our subject was in a ‘ good ’ place ; 1929 , and an aunt paid for Joan ’ s , and her sister ’ s education at a private school , and it was here that her artistic talent was spotted .
Art school in Blackheath and then Goldsmiths College ( London ) in 1938 were good places before the call of the North grew too strong and mother consequently brought the girls ‘ back home ’ – well , to Glasgow in 1939 where she enrolled at the Glasgow school of art as a day student – and that road ( that of day student ), believe me , is a hard road to tread when you are looking for a qualification that might open a few doors in the future . At this school , GS 60 was influenced by the ‘ Scottish Colourists ( see GS 57 – J . D . Fergusson – to see who they were ). Her main and abiding influence came from Margot Sandemen who was to be awarded the Sir James Guthrie Prize for Portraiture – the significance of this , as far as Joan Eardley is concerned , is that the prize , a biography of Guthrie ( by Sir James Caw ) is still a prized possession of J . K . H .’ s family .
A sojourn in the south of England , roots in Scotland – what next for our subject ? Why not Italy and France ? After more studies , in London then in Arbroath , Joan went ‘ continental ’ in 1948 and 1949 , particularly in Italy where she came under the influences of Massacio and of Piero della Francesca . Back in Scotland by the end of 1949 she set up an exhibition of the work accomplished during her ‘ Italian time ’ and it was at this ‘ expo ’ that her scenes of beggars , peasants and