Acclaimed Artist Shows Blue Sky Thinking – Hidden Painting Now Revealed
Acclaimed Artist Shows Blue Sky Thinking –
Hidden Painting Now Revealed
A Joan Eardley oil painting Glasgow Tenements, Blue Sky, 1954 had a valuable secret hidden for fifty years on its reverse side. It was an unfinished picture of a small flame haired boy that the artist had started and lost interest in. Instead she painted the tenement where the child lived and had that framed.
Two for One
The painting belonged to Ms Eardley’s sister and it wasn’t until her death and the subsequent sale of the artwork at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh that the painting’s secret came to light. It fetched a whopping £115,000 upon sale and the lucky new owner got two pictures, not one.
Lost to Us Early
Ms Eardley was a gifted painter, known for her portraiture of street children, and she is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest post war artists. Born to a Scottish mother she was raised in West Sussex and died at the shockingly early age of 42 in 1963 while at the height of her powers. She had come to Glasgow in about 1950 and set up near the poor area of Townhead, seeking out subjects for her art. The artist was originally quite fashionable in international circles and is no doubt ripe for a rediscovery of her undoubted genius in both portraiture and Scottish landscape she founded the so called "Catterline School" of artists during the 1950s whose members included Annette Soper, Angus Neil and Lil Neilson.
Life’s Little Treasures
And if you want crystal that becomes an almost instant heirloom you don’t have to wait to discover an oil painting or find an antique in the attic, especially when most of us no longer have attics, instead investigate our lovely crystal wares. We often have them on offer, but we believe they will always to be treasured.
