Girl in a striped cardigan

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

20674

Title

Girl in a striped cardigan

Description

A figurative work on paper of a girl in a blue and red striped cardigan. The girl stares out at the viewer with an absent look. A bruise seems to be on the child's face or possibly Eardley has given a playful depiction of dirt on the girl's cheek. Although the hollowed eyes seem to imbue the work with a sense of melancholy, the use of colour is rich and jovial.

Artist / maker

Eardley, Joan

Size

22.2 x 16.5 cm

Type

Pastel

Location

City Art Centre

Accession number

CAC1985/12

Joan Eardley was born in 1923 in Sussex. She spent most of her life living Scotland, having moved there at the start of the Second World War. Eardley is known as a Scottish artist. Eardley purchased a studio in Townhead in which she spent much of her time painting the children who lived and played there.
The poverty, sadness and indeed the resilience of the children she saw everyday became one of the essential themes of her work. During the early years of the second world war, many families had been left homeless after many bombings. Eardley's pictures give a gripping account of Glasgow's poor during this time.
The subject ofn the 'Girl in a Striped Cardigan' is Mary Samson. Mary was one of the children who lived and played in the streets near Eardley's Townhead studio in Glasgow.

(c) The Eardley Estate

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People > Children > Girls