Read | Robin H. Rodger considers Eardley’s position with specific regard to the Royal Scottish Academy

 On the 13th of February 1963, Joan Eardley was elected as a full Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, having become an Associate in 1955. Had she survived longer than the short six months after her election she would surely have played a major role in the late twentieth-century history of the RSA. Nonetheless, her short involvement with the RSA remains notable, first exhibiting in 1943, winning awards and having work purchased by the RSA for its collections. This new piece of research and writing by Robin Rodger of the RSA collections team reveals Eardley’s history at the RSA and lists all the works she exhibited at the RSA Annual Exhibitions in her lifetime, many of which are now in publicly accessible collections.