One of the last finished paintings of Glasgow’s street children by celebrated Scottish artist, Joan Eardley, is set to go under the hammer with fine art auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh next week.
Joan Eardley’s The Yellow Jumper is described as outstanding example of the artist’s depictions of the children of the now largely demolished neighbourhood of old Townhead in Glasgow city centre.
It is expected to fetch a six figure sum at auction next week.
It was one of the final works Eardley made before her untimely death, aged 42, in August 1963.
The important work, valued between £100,000 and £150,000, comes from a series featuring two children positioned in front of a bright-red graffiti-covered wall. This was inspired by the exterior of the scrap-metal business beneath Eardley’s studio – hence the word METAL stencilled above the heads of the children in The Yellow Jumper.
It’s great to see this work after all these years.
The work depicts two of the Samson siblings, members of a family of 12 children who lived near her studio. They were amongst Eardley’s favourite sitters.
Ann Samson, who appears in many of Eardley’s paintings, said: “It’s great to see this work after all these years. It looks like it could be my sister Mary and our youngest brother Brian, who sadly died a good few years ago."
The Yellow Jumper is related to Eardley's Two Children, found incomplete on the artist’s easel on her death. This work now hangs in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Six others works by Eardley will be offered in Lyon & Turnbull's biannual Scottish Paintings & Sculpture sale. It opens for public viewing at the auction house's Edinburgh saleroom on Sunday 4 December, with the sale taking place four days later.
Alice Strang, Senior Specialist in Modern & Contemporary Art at Lyon & Turnbull said: "The Yellow Jumper is one of Eardley's glorious depictions of Glaswegian children. She never fails to capture her sitters' joie de vivre via an extraordinary painting and collage technique. The youngsters’ ease with each other and with the artist is clear. It is a stunning work and we are delighted to present it to the market."
Another highlight of the auction is a powerful painting by Port Seton-born artist John Bellany, The Persecuted of 1968. The work was created by Bellany while studying at the Royal College of Art in London, which he attended after graduating from Edinburgh College of Art.
The Yellow Jumper is one of Eardley's glorious depictions of Glaswegian children
Bellany visited East Germany on a cultural scholarship in 1967. While he was behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War, he visited the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp. This led him to paint The Persecuted.
The work, expected to sell for between £40,000 and £60,000, is one of a range of paintings from the late 1960s, which cemented Bellany's reputation as a significant international contemporary artist.
Nick Curnow, Head of Fine Art at Lyon & Turnbull said: "The Persecuted is a wonderfully direct and challenging expressionist painting. It places Bellany firmly at the forefront of European post-war figurative painting.
"The Eardley and the Bellany works sit at the heart of a wide-ranging sale of Scottish art. We anticipate international interest in this auction, which features nearly two hundred paintings and sculptures by some of the most significant Scottish artists of the last 200 years."
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