About this artwork
Eardley’s flower paintings are rare and belong mainly to periods of illness when she was unable to work outside: friends would bring bunches of wild flowers to her studio for her to paint. She made about a dozen such paintings of wildflowers in vases late in life. They are not, as is sometimes said, her very last works, painted when she was confined indoors in the early summer months of 1963. Indeed, Eardley stopped painting when she could no longer see properly, at the beginning of July 1963, and wildflowers like those shown here would not have been in bloom any earlier. For that reason, Flowers probably dates from 1962. This painting shows her experimentation with thick oil paint, exploring texture, movement and colour.
Updated before 2020
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artist:
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title:Flowers
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date created:1962
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:76.00 x 50.50 cm; Framed: 89.00 x 59.50 x 5.40 cm
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object type:
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credit line:The Henry and Sula Walton collection: bequeathed 2012
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accession number:GMA 5241
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Joan Eardley
Joan Eardley
Born in West Sussex, Eardley moved to Glasgow at the outbreak of war. She studied at Glasgow School of Art and at Hospitalfield House under James Cowie. Cowie helped to shape her preference for everyday subjects. In 1949 Eardley rented a studio in the centre of Glasgow, and a few years later moved...