EDINBURGH.- Two works by Scottish painter Joan Eardley that show her strong compassionate identification with the working class Glasgow community in which she worked from the early 1950s, are to be offered for sale at Bonhams Scottish Paintings sale in Edinburgh on 16 September. Two Samson Children is estimated at £15,000-20,000 and Corner Shop, Townhead at £8,000-12,000.

The paintings – together with a work from 1950, Girl and Dog, estimated at £8,000-12,000 - were in the collection of Raymond Fields who met Eardley while working in production for STV and visited her studio.

Joan Eardley first found recognition in the early 1950s for her depiction of the people and urban landscape of Townhead, the deprived working class area of Glasgow where she set up her studio after returning from a study tour of France and Italy. The influence of the Renaissance masters she encountered abroad is seen in the humanity of her depiction of the Townhead street children. The 12 children of the Samson family, in particular, were favourite sitters and frequently appear in her work in various combinations. As in Two Samson Children, one older child is often seen protectively holding a younger sibling.

“Eardley’s felt deeply for the street children of Townhead who lived in real poverty and dressed in hand-me-downs but it was a compassion stripped of any sentimentality,” says Bonhams Head of Scottish Art, Chris Brickley. “Her depiction of them is never patronizing and it is that which gives these images their power and dignity.

“Townhead was largely demolished in the 1960s and many of the inhabitants dispersed to newly built towns on the outskirts of Glasgow. Eardley mourned the subsequent loss of community and she captured its dying embers in works like Corner Shop, Townhead.”