Joan Eardley at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Originally from Sussex, Joan Eardley relocated to Scotland in 1940 and became a student at the Glasgow School of Art. She remained a Scottish resident until her untimely passing in 1963. During her short career, she made a significant impact on the Scottish art scene and the wider world, with bold and atmospheric impressions of her adopted homeland.

Eardley's paintings focus on two distinct themes: portraiture of children in the run-down tenements of Glasgow's Townhead and landscapes of the coastal fishing village of Catterline, south of Aberdeen. Although the scenes reflect the stark contrast between rural and city life, Eardley, who split her time between the two locations, discovered similarities below the surface, describing both as having a comparable "sense of place" due to the tight-knit communities who lived there.

Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place collates items from both public and private collections, incorporating a fantastic selection of sketches and photographs from a previously unpublished archive to give an unprecedented insight into her artistic development and working methods.

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"We have tried to recreate Eardley's working process to show how she made the work, from sketch to finished painting, and attempted to track her movements as precisely as possible," says Patrick Elliott, the chief curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. "In many of the Catterline paintings, you can say exactly where she was standing, almost down to the nearest inch. Visitors to the exhibition will, as it were, be looking over her shoulder in what will be the most detailed and personal insight into Eardley's life and art to date."

For a career spanning only 15 years, Eardley's contribution to Scottish art is nothing short of remarkable. Her realist documentation of life in the Townhead slums holds particular significance, as the area was demolished in the 1960s, while the scarcely changed Catterline landscapes offer an opportunity to appreciate the foundation of accuracy that lies beneath Eardley's more abstract and eminently expressive landscapes.

Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place is at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two), 73 Belford Rd, Edinburgh EH4 3DS, from 3 December 2016 to 21 May 2017; nationalgalleries.org

Lead image: Winter Day, Catterline by Joan Eardley Inlaid images: Three Children at a Tenement Window, photograph and artwork by Joan Eardley Credit: © Estate of Joan Eardley. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016