Joan Eardley RSA, (British, 1921-1963)

Cornfield, Catterline 33 x 53 cm. (13 x 20 7/8 in.)

Cornfield, Catterline
watercolour, gouache and ink
33 x 53 cm. (13 x 20 7/8 in.)
Painted c.1960-62

Provenance
With Roland, Browse & Delbanco
Sale; Sotheby's, 6 February 1990, Lot 335

This work was painted outdoors in Catterline, the small fishing village in Kincardineshire, where Eardley spent much of her time from the 1950s onwards. The land and seascapes inspired many of Eardley's most memorable works, some of which verge on abstraction, and take their place as important markers in the evolution of 20th Century expressionist painting.

She painted the fields behind her house on many occasions, where the hedgerow flowers grew; or the vista beyond, looking north-west over the fields called The Reath, which were part of the nearest farm, the Mains of Catterline. (P Elliot with A Galatro, Joan Eardley; A Sense of Place, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2016 pp.82-101).

Eardley wrote to her friend Margot: 'I've got a series of paintings going at the end of my old cottage. I never seem to find that I want to move. It's a handy spot as no-one comes near and I can work away undisturbed. I just go on from one painting to another - just the grasses and the corn - it's oats this year, barley it was last year. There's a wee, windblown tree, and that's all. But every day and every week it looks a bit different - the flowers come and the corn grows so it is silly to shift about. I just leave my painting table out here, and my easel and my palette.' (Cordelia Oliver, Joan Eardley, RSA, 1988, p.76).

Her expressive use of paint and warm colours combined with deep shadows, evokes the Scottish weather at the end of summer. The viewer has a real sense of urgency to gather in the harvest before the rain clouds roll in. Now, with hindsight, this could also be applied as a metaphor to her own personal situation. Eardley, who died at the tragically young age of 42 in 1963, was one of Britain's most remarkable artists of the post war period. This year marks the centenary of Eardley's birth.