May Matthews
Managing Director, Scotland
Lot 99AR
Joan Eardley RSA(British, 1921-1963)Boy and Cat 51 x 36 cm. (20 1/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
Amended
14 – 15 October 2021, 14:00 BST
EdinburghSold for £19,000 inc. premium
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Joan Eardley RSA (British, 1921-1963)
Boy and Cat
pastel and charcoal
51 x 36 cm. (20 1/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
pastel and charcoal
51 x 36 cm. (20 1/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist's family
Sale; Sotheby's, 6 February 1990, Lot 336
Eardley had two studios, one after another, in the Townhead area of Glasgow. Initially the children came to her studio simply in order to watch Eardley at work, but soon became for her a major subject. She had a particular affinity with these young locals. Perhaps this was due to the matter-of-fact way that they viewed the world around them, similar to the way that Eardley approached her art.
For around ten years, she drew and painted the Samson family, who lived in a two-bedroom tenement flat a short walk from the studio. There were 12 children in all, so Eardley had a steady flow of child models of all ages and stages. "This particular family of Samsons move me. They hardly notice me when they come in. They are full of what they have been doing. Who has gone to jail today. Who has broken into what shop. Who flung a pie into whose face, and so it goes on and on. They are letting out their life ... For me they are Glasgow' (W. Buchanan, Joan Eardley, Edinburgh, 1976, p.36).
Eardley portrayed these children in an unstaged, unsentimental way. Boy with Cat is a superb example of her uncompromising realism.
Saleroom notices
The artist's studio inventory number ED692.