Catterline joan eardley biography

Joan Eardley lived from 18 May 1921 to 16 August 1963. She became an important Glasgow-based artist in the post-war years who also founded the "Catterline School" of artists.

The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley was born in Sussex in England, where her parents were dairy farmers. Her father had been wounded in a gas attack in the First World War, and committed suicide in 1929.

Joan moved with her mother to Blackheath in London, where she first attended Art School before moving in 1939 to study at the Glasgow School of Art.

After spending a year in 1947 touring France and Italy, Joan set up a studio in Glasgow, close to the deprived Townhead area, where she became known for her drawings and paintings of children, often playing in the streets.

She soon developed a reputation for atmospheric a