This exhibition, held at GSA's Reid Gallery and Windows on Heritage Space (9 Nov - 16 Dec 2023) is based on research undertaken for our co-authored article, also titled 'Early Eardley' for The British Art Journal (winter 2021/2022). It considers GSA graduate Joan Eardley's early works, mainly works on paper, many made while a student at GSA. The works cover a range of subjects and themes not always associated with the artist, and the exhibition aims to highlight the diversity of the artist's work beyond the Catterline and Townhead works for which she is most famous. These include life drawings and sensitive portraits of elderly people, as well as images of Italian fishermen, architecture, farm animals and machinery, domestic interiors and English landscapes.

Drawings and paintings included here show works made on visits to Arran with fellow classmate Margot Sandeman, post-art school periods in Lincolnshire (made while working on a mural commission) and an extensive range of works on paper made in Italy and France in 1948-49 part of a travelling scholarship from GSA and the RSA.

The exhibition is drawn from GSA's own holdings of Eardley's early works (Archives and Special Collections) and contextual material from the period, along with loans from the Eardley Estate, Gerber Fine Art, City Art Centre (Edinburgh), Lillie Art Gallery (Milngavie).