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Size:
Height – 26cm x Width – 52cm
Provenance: the artist’s family;The Fine Art Society
Literature:Y.Y.K. Kerr, Ian Eadie of Dundee, London 2000, pp. 12–14
Art should be judged from all points: design, colour, rhythm, decoration,
technique and feeling’ (Ian Eadie quoted in J.Y.K. Kerr, Ian Eadie of Dundee, 2000, pp. 12‚Äì14).
This study for a mural was most likely intended as decoration for a bar,
probably undertaken during the artist’s last year as a student at Dundee
College of Art. A related watercolour, Comic Face (1936) is reproduced in
J.Y.K.
Kerr’s biography of the artist, Ian Eadie of Dundee (p. 13). From 1947
to 1973 Eadie was one of Scotland’s most prolific muralists.
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Painter, muralist and teacher, born and died in Dundee, who showed an
early talent for drawing, leaving Harris Academy as Dux Medallist in
Art. From 1931 studied under J Milne Purvis at Dundee College of Art,
gaining his diploma after three years, then a postgraduate year. He won
the first travelling scholarship awarded by the College, which enabled
him to study under Ferdinand Sabatt in Paris at the Ãcole des
Beaux-Arts and to travel in Italy, a tour cut short by the death of his
father. Aged 22, Eadie had shown at the RSA, to which he was soon to
add RP and RWS. Eadie was commissioned to paint murals for the 1938
British Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. In 1939 he studied for four
months at Westmin¬ster School of Art under Mark Gertler, then began
teaching at Dundee College of Art until World War II interrupted.
Joined the Gordon Highlanders and, taking a commission, served with the
51st Highland Division widely abroad as divisional war artist, his work
eventually being taken by the Imperial War Museum and public galleries
in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow. There was an exhibition of the war
pictures at the Scottish Gallery, with tour, in 1944. Demobilised in
1946 Eadie soon returned to Dundee College of Art to teach, part-time
until the end of his life as he wished to freelance. This involved
periodic economic hardship, disappointments and bouts of hard work. He
had solo exhibitions at Panmure Art Salon, Dundee, 1947, and Blyth
Hall, Newport, 1953. Eadie’s heavy workload as a mural painter from the
1950’s eroded time for easel painting. There were many commissions for
ships, others including Shoppers, for the Overgate Shopping Centre,
Dundee, and one for the Aviemore Holiday Centre. Travels on the
continent saw him latterly returning to easel painting, but heavy
smoking and a dependence on alcohol undermined Eadie’s health and cut
short his working life. Dundee College of Art awards an Ian Eadie
Prize.work. Lived in Swindon.