Joan Eardley’s career lasted barely fifteen years: she died in 1963, aged just forty-two. During that time she concentrated on two very different themes: the extraordinarily candid paintings of children in the Townhead area of Glasgow; and paintings of the fishing village of Catterline, just south of Aberdeen, with its leaden skies and wild sea. These two contrasting strands are the focus of this book, which looks in detail at her working process. It draws on a remarkable archive of sketches and photographs which remains largely unknown and unpublished. It also features many works from public and private collections, allowing the viewer to trace specific developments between the photographs, the drawings and the finished paintings. Many of the works in this book have never been published before

Patrick Elliott is Senior Curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. He has written extensively on modern and contemporary art. Recent publications include The Amazing World of M.C. Escher, 2015; Another World: Dalí, Magritte, Miró and the Surrealists, 2010; Tony Cragg, 2011; The Two Roberts: Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, 2014