Eardley, Joan
Joan Eardley first visited Catterline, a fishing village south of Aberdeen on the north-east coast of Scotland in 1951, and a few years later she moved to a cottage on the headland. The seascapes and landscapes which she painted there transcend locality to create universal statements about the force of the elements. This remote location is in sharp contrast to the main subject matter of the other group of paintings for which she is well known - the children of overcrowded Glasgow tenements. 'A Field of Oats' was painted out of doors a year before she died and is one of a series of works of the fields around her cottage in Catterline. As the artist explained, 'It's a handy spot as no-one comes near and I can work away undisturbed. I just go on from one painting to another – just the grasses and the corn – it's oats this year, barley it was last year. But every day and every week it looks a bit different.'
A Field of Oats
1962