Will sleeping nude reawaken Fifties furore?
SHOCKED headlines read “No Clothes On!” when Joan Eardley’s portrait of a naked man went on show in 1954. Now Sleeping Nude is to be shown at the National Galleries of Scotland in its first major exhibition of Eardley’s works. The artist, who died of cancer at 42 in 1963, was one of the top 20th-century Scottish painters. Fiona Pearson, the curator of the show, pointed out: “No-one’s ever made anything about a man painting a naked woman.” Sleeping Nude was given to the National Galleries by Eardley’s mother after her death, but has rarely been seen.
