The career of the painter Joan Eardley (1921 – 1963) is regarded as being comprised of three distinct phases, reaching maturity in her distinctive paintings of children in Townhead, Glasgow, between 1950-57, and, from the late 1950s until her death in 1963, the land and seascapes of Catterline which constitute her ‘late style’. In contrast to the art historical preoccupation with the latter two phases, this paper focuses on Eardley’s early works of the 1940s to ask how the artist’s formative period at Glasgow School of Art and her postgraduate study at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, informed the direction and development of her later work.

Along with her formal training (under the direction of the portrait painters Hugh Adam Crawford and James Cowie) the paper also considers the reciprocal influence of a broader network of artists and peers, including that of the Polish refugee Josef Herman (1911-2000), whose social realist works are reflected in Eardley’s early subject matter such as ‘The Mixer Men’ (1944). A consideration of works produced in Italy during her Carnegie Scholarship (Royal Scottish Academy) and Travelling Scholarship (Glasgow School of Art) in 1948-9 will further examine the trajectory and development of Eardley’s oeuvre, leading to the 1950 Port Glasgow works which immediately precede her famous Townhead paintings. Throughout the paper, we will consider the importance of artistic kinship and peer support between women, looking at the links between Eardley and fellow students and painters such as Cordelia Oliver, Bet Low, Margot Sandeman and Dorothy Steel.