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Notes
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This bold oil makes good use of pattern and colour and incorporates collage to depict the rough tenement walls plastered with graffiti. Eardley had found a set of old metal stencils and the stencilled letters – 'metal store scrap', 'hair', 'woolen & baging' – seem to dance over the heads of the two girls. To this she added the metal foil of sweet papers and newspaper headlines – the flotsam and jetsam of Glasgow street life. The children are treated with freedom as part of the picture's overall pattern of line and colour, their summer clothes a mishmash of styles, patterns and colours, and their expressions difficult to read – has the taller one just put a sweetie in her mouth or has she see something that has surprised or shocked her? The smaller of the two looks on in a more passive, subdued way. The rough almost makeshift application of the various media seems in accordance with a sensitive understanding of the children's nature and their lives.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Title
Two Children
Date
1963
Medium
oil & collage on canvas
Measurements
H 134.7 x W 134.7 cm
Accession number
3532
Acquisition method
purchased with the assistance of the National Fund for Acquisitions and Glasgow Art Gallery and Museums Association, 1994
Work type
Painting
