Modern Scottish Women, 7 Nov 2015 – 26 Jun 2016

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)

This exhibition focused on the work of Scottish women painters and sculptors from the period, 1885 – 1965, when there was an increase in the number of women attending art schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Before the nineteenth century, traditional views on women had prevented them from undertaking artistic training.

The display brought together work by Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, Bessie MacNicol, Joan Eardley, Dorothy Johnstone and Phoebe Anna Traquair, to name a few of the 45 artists included in the exhibition.

The work of Joan Eardley (1921 – 1963), in particular, caught my attention. Eardley was born in Essex and moved to Scotland in 1940, attending the Glasgow School of Art from the age of nineteen. She was inspired by ordinary, everyday scenes and painted impoverished children of that time period, from the streets of Glasgow.

I find her expressive paintings of the coastal village of Catterline particularly evocative. After the year 1954 the artist spent time here, painting ‘en plein air’. Catterline in Winter (1963) is a large oil painting depicting a row of characterful cottages in a dramatic winter’s landscape. The dark, dominant sky and the rough, energetic brushstrokes used to depict the landscape evoke a feeling of tension and drama. This piece is alive with movement, which is emphasised by the skewed angles of the houses, and it feels as if Eardley has attacked the canvas with a flurry of brushstrokes in an attempt to capture the moment. The colour is limited to reflect the bleakness of winter; the snow covered road is illuminated by the full moon above. In the gallery, this piece drew me in to take a closer look at the brushstrokes and resulting surface textures.