Joaneardleyartist

26/08/2026

Always 🤍

Oh Joan🤍

25/08/2026

JOAN EARDLEY: THE SEA AT CATTERLINE is at Maltings Berwick gallery until 11 October.

This feature about this exhibition is in The Fleming Collection’s summer magazine.

The exhibition is part of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA)’s Celebrating Together Project across the UK, marking 200 years of the Royal Scottish Academy.

It highlights paintings from Joan Eardley’s late years working at Catterline on the north east coastline of Scotland.

In the piece, historian Keava McMillan explores what drew a le***an painter to live, work and create these astonishing works in this tiny fishing village.

Loans from the RSA, The Fleming Collection, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums and private collections bring together a remarkable group of paintings and works on paper created in response to Catterline’s dramatic coastline and atmosphere.

The exhibition was developed in partnership with The Fleming Collection and is open from Wednesday to Sunday until 11 October.

Commentary by Jan Patience Art & Communications

Apologies for the facebook captions. Quite funny really…

16/08/2026

𝐉𝐎𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐘

𝟏𝟖 𝐌𝐀𝐘 𝟏𝟗𝟐𝟏 – 𝟏𝟔 𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟑

After a Champagne-fuelled private view of what became her acclaimed and sell-out final exhibition at Roland, Browse & Delbanco in London, Joan Eardley wrote to Audrey Walker.

She told Audrey that few of the people at the crowded private view in May 1963 were:

‘…real people - as all true people are, I think. It’s only the phoney ones who aren’t, and that is interesting.’

Just three months later, on 16 August 1963, Joan died. The cancer which had been eating away at her, the symptoms of which she ignored, had finally caught up with her body. She was 42.

Joan had many artist friends and admirers. Real people. William and his wife Nita Begg. Margot Sandeman, Dorothy Steel, Audrey, Lilian Neilson. Too many to list.

In a radio review of Joan’s memorial exhibition, held in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, the painter David Donaldson wrote:

‘Examine when you look at these works the almost unendurable tension between sea and sky, where the two elements must meet and be joined, and the world made whole. These are paintings of miraculous sensibility, and when one considers that they were done in the open assaulted by wind and weather, together with the agony of the inner vision, our admiration stills to silent respect. Joan Eardley was that rare thing, a creative painter.

‘Go and look, for her world is full of wonder.’

This image show Joan Eardley, photographed by her artist friend William (Bill) Gallacher, c1955, in Catterline, during a visit with wife Nita and their family.

© Estate of William Gallacher

11/08/2026

16/07/2026

There’s a feature on Art UK’s website about paintings by Joan Eardley in 36 UK public collections (listed below).

The piece, edited by art historian Alice Strang is a fascinating read.

You can then follow up on the other works by Eardley collected by these art organisations.

Joan Eardley was born on a Sussex farm and moved to Lincoln briefly with her family before spending her early years with her mother and younger sister in Blackheath, London.

On the outset of war, Joan moved to Scotland in late 1939 with her grandmother, mother and sister. They had family roots in Scotland.

Joan trained at the Glasgow School of Art and in Arbroath.

She is renowned for her portrayal of the Townhead area of Glasgow and of Catterline, a fishing village perched on the north-east coast south of Aberdeen.

This image, Boy’s Head, is an oil painting on board which was bought from the Parson’s Gallery in London in 1954 by London-based Government Art Collection. It depicts Jim Samson, one of 12 siblings in a Townhead family. Joan drew and painted many of the Samsons. Like his younger sister Pat, Jim has bright red hair.

The piece is to be found here:

https://artuk.org/discover/curations/from-the-highlands-to-hampshire-collecting-joan-eardley

The public collections with Eardleys:

Inverness Museum & Art Gallery
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

The McManus, Dundee
University of Dundee
Perth Art Gallery
University of Stirling
Kirkcaldy Galleries
The Royal Scottish Academy
National Galleries of Scotland
Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh
EDLC Heritage & Arts 
The Hunterian
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Glasgow School of Art
BBC Scotland
Paisley Museum Re-Imagined
National Trust for Scotland
Gracefield Arts Centre
Abbot Hall
University of York

Birmingham Museum of Art
Art Gallery & Museum
Alfred East Gallery
Rugby Art Gallery And Museum
Trinity College, Oxford
Government Art Collection
Fleming Collection
Tate Collective
Arts Council Collection
Southwark Park Galleries
Reading Museum
Mottisfont

08/07/2026

NOW ON SALE: Join Theodore Albano, Director of The Fleming Collection, as he discusses the later career of legendary Scottish artist Joan Eardley.

Theodore Albano is co-curator of the exhibition Joan Eardley: The Sea at Catterline at the Granary Gallery (until 11 October). He has previously worked in museums, galleries and foundations in Canada and the USA.

Maltings Cinema at Berwick Barracks
Thursday 24 September | 6pm
Friday 25 September | 11am
Secure your seats: https://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/whats-on/joan-eardley-at-catterline/

Joan Eardley: The Sea at Catterline has been curated in partnership with The Fleming Collection and is part of RSA200: Celebrating Together.

Image credit: Joan Eardley at Catterline (c.1960) © Audrey Walker Photography with kind permission of the Walker family, courtesy Royal Scottish Academy.

26/06/2026