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The estate of Audrey Walker courtesy of The Scottish Gallery
Joan Eardley is known for her depictions of Glasgow's street children and the coastal landscapes of Catterline
A "long lost" painting by Joan Eardley - known for her depictions of Glasgow street children and an Aberdeenshire fishing village - has sold for £29,500 after being discovered in a charity shop.
Staff at the shop in the East Midlands were curious about the artwork when they found a faded label on the back which linked it to The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.
The gallery was able to confirm it as Summer Fields by Eardley, and it has now been sold it to a private collector of Scottish art.
The shop which found it wished to remain nameless, but gallery director Tommy Zyw said it was the largest single sale in the charity's history and would help it support medical research.
Eardley, who was born in England in 1921 and moved to Scotland as a teenager, is known for her depictions of Glasgow's street children and the coastal landscapes of Catterline, an Aberdeenshire fishing village.
She died at the age of 42 in 1963.
Zyw described Eardley as "a star who continues to rise as her audience grows and more and more people engage with her subject and her life and work".
Summer Fields was painted around 1961 and captures the "dying sunset spilling across the corner of a Catterline field".
The estate of Joan Eardley courtesy of The Scottish Gallery
Summer Fields was painted a few years before Eardley's death in 1963
Zyw told how the gallery is often contacted by owners of paintings to do valuations.
He said most of the time they turn out to be framed posters or works by "family members, but occasionally they get something "very, very special".
"This is just what happened with this remarkable painting which was sent to us from a charity shop in the East Midlands," he said.
He explained that the manager of the shop had been going through items from a house clearance when he spotted "a small dark oil painting".
He said on the reverse of it there was a fragment of a label, on which there were only a few legible words.
"One was 'summer ', one was 'Joan' and one was 'The Scottish Gallery' and as soon as we picked up the phone our interest was piqued - could this be a long lost Joan Eardley painting?"
Zyw said the painting was then kept at a shop worker's house until it could be collected and brought to the gallery by an art carrier.
The Scottish Gallery
Director of The Scottish Gallery Tommy Zyw said he knew the painting was by Eardley as soon as he saw it
"My pulse was quickening as I was unwrapping the bubble," he said.
"As soon as the bubble wrap was lifted from the painting's surface I knew exactly what it was - it just had to be a Joan Eardley painting."
"The same way you are familiar with your family members or best friend's handwriting - the handling of the paint, the way it was presented all spoke instantly of the great master Joan Eardley."
He said he was also able to use information on the label to confirm its provenance.
"I was able, given those small fragments of information, to look up its original sale in our historic daybooks and I could find that the sale written in scrolling script in these old ledgers was the sale of Summer Fields in May 1961.
"And so that was the final seal of approval to authenticate this painting and to start its journey back to public display."
The Scottish Gallery
The worn label on the back of the painting helped the charity shop trace it to The Scottish Gallery
The painting was then cleaned before being exhibited at the British Art Fair in London in September 2025 and then at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh's New Town in October.
Zyw said: "It was visited by many, many thousands of people - including the original manager of the charity shop who came and enjoyed seeing the painting in a completely different context from when it first arrived with him."
Zyw said Summer Fields then caught the eye of a collector and the charity was "over the moon" with the sale.
"It was something they were all extremely excited about, from the shop manager who first found it, to higher up in head office, they've all followed this journey with great excitement," he said.
"We are in touch with lots of art connoisseurs, art lovers and people looking for that one special painting to add to their art collection, and the painting is now with a great lover of Scottish art, particularly post-war art, and so it is now happily hanging in somebody else's home for the next chapter in this painting's story to unfold."
