There were two Joan Eardleys, according to a new biography of the Scottish painter by Christopher Andreae. There was ‘the tender and gentle Joan’, as revealed by her bosom friend Audrey Walker, and ‘the tough, cussing, swearing, bulldozing, indomitable creator of what may be masterpieces’. Both are reflected in the Portland Gallery’s new exhibition of drawings and paintings from the last 20 years of her short life (until 17 May).
The tough Joan chose the challenging subject matter, dividing her time between the rotting tenements of unreconstructed Glasgow and the leaky fisherman’s cottages of Catterline, south of Aberdeen. Her restless eye was irresistibly drawn to moving targets, whether swarms of street urchins in clashing hand-me-down clothes or crashing breakers under granite skies, see ‘Todhead Point’ above (during one blizzard her easel had to be secured with an anchor).
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