Eardley, Joan (1921–1963)

English painter. She was greatly influenced by the post-Impressionist painter van Gogh, both technically and in terms of her choice of subjects. Her finest work was produced in Scotland, where she painted the impoverished children of Glaswegian tenements, and landscapes and seascapes inspired by the northeast coast around the tiny fishing village of Catterline.

Eardley was born in Warnham, Sussex. She began her studies at Goldsmith's College of Art, London in 1938 but moved to study at the Glasgow School of Art in 1940. After World War II she studied at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, and at Glasgow School of Art, winning various prizes and travelling to France and Italy on a Carnegie bursary. In 1949 she took a studio in Cochrane Street, Glasgow, and in 1950 she first visited Catterline where she lived and worked until her death.