Joan Eardley, R.S.A.

Parsons Gallery, London, 1954, where purchased by Eric Linklater and thence by descent;
Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 27 May 2005, lot 73, where purchased by the present owners

Glasgow, The Art Gallery and Museum Kelvingrove and Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy (The Arts Council of Great Britain), Joan Eardley Memorial Exhibition, 1964, no.27;
Glasgow, Third Eye Centre (Scottish Arts Council), Joan Eardley Exhibition, May 1975;
Stromness, Orkney, Pier Arts Centre, 1980;
Edinburgh, Talbot Rice Gallery, Joan Eardley Retrospective, 1988, no.42;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, Joan Eardley, 6 November 2007-13 January 2008

C. Oliver, Joan Eardley, RSA, Edinburgh, 1988, p.53, pl.53, illustrated;
F. Pearson, Joan Eardley, Edinburgh, 2007, p.36, pl.33, illustrated;
C. Andreae, Joan Eardley, Surrey, 2013, p.112, pl.100, illustrated

Angus Neil, the sitter in the present painting, was a close companion of Joan Eardley's. Their life long friendship was born during the summer of 1947 when they both attended a summer art school held at Hospitalfield, near Arbroath. Eardley immediately recognised the younger artist’s talent, admiring Angus’ acute sense of tonal values, something that she felt lacking in her own work. In the early 1950’s at the time Eardley settled in Townhead, Angus became a popular and patient model of hers. Some of Eardley's paintings of Angus must be considered among the finest works of her middle Glasgow period. This painting was produced the year before Sleeping Nude, another oil that Angus sat for. Due to the controversy that this painting caused Eardley never painted a nude again and Sleeping Nude hangs in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

In The Table, one is reminded once again of the importance Eardley put on finding what she called ‘story’ behind human subjects as, for her, a truly successful painting had to go deeper than a mere visual record. We see Angus seated at his cluttered kitchen table in his Montrose Street lodging. Unaware of the viewer, Eardley has depicted Angus slumped, head downcast, evoking a sombre mood. Their friendship had its ups and downs. Angus, who had developed mental health problems after the war, had a rather temperamental and sometimes untrustworthy nature. The two however had come to depend on eachother. In the present painting Eardley offers an insight into Angus’ quiet life, set down in a marvellously lucid and telling arrangement of colour-planes, rendering with inspired simplicity the fall of light through the dusty windows placed behind the cluttered yet exceptional table-top still life.