Two becomes four as artist reveals the secrets of an unfinished masterpiece

Young pair’s surprise arrival in recreation of painter’s last work

It was found, unfinished, on her easel after she died but a vision of how the last painting by acclaimed artist Joan Eardley might have looked if completed may soon hang in the city that inspired it.

With the blessing of the late painter’s estate, artist Kate Downie has created a new version of Two Children which has now been bought by Glasgow Mu s e u m s. Re c r u i t i n g neighbourhood youngsters for sittings, Downie found herself drawn into the project, even discovering clues to hidden figures that had only just started to take shape when Eardley, acknowledged as one of Scotland’s finest painters, died in 1963.

Her painting, based on extensive research and a career-long love of Eardley’s work, forms a best guess at how the painting would have emerged had its creator not been lost to breast cancer aged just 42. “It was an honour and responsibility,” Downie said. “It was an act of love and an act of research at the same time.

“Eardley could never have finished the painting when she was poorly as it’s too big and too ambitious. But she got quite far with it. By working into it, it gave me a chance to see what her intentions were.

“I’m not saying I’m right, that it’s definitive, and that’s the exciting thing. What’s the point of painting if you know how it’s going to come out?”

Often labelled the painter’s painter, Eardley’s work is beloved by artists and the public alike, with a series of events across the last year marking the centenary of her birth. Two Children was her final work, part of a series of paintings based on the youngsters who would play on the city streets around her studio in Townhead, Glasgow.

Downie, based in Ceres, Fife, is happy to have paid her own tribute to a great artist on what would have been the centenary of her birth as range of special events and exhibitions take place to celebrate her life and career.

“I feel like she’s alive in people’s hearts,” she said. “Her work affects people quite profoundly. I always felt really upset that she died so young, in the way that you feel sad when women’s talent isn’t allowed to be properly part of a cultural or art historical conversation. I feel that her position is safe now, so then I can lay her to rest.”

Downie also hopes her recreation can be a tribute to those women, like Eardley, lost to breast cancer: “So many wonderful friends of mine have passed away with breast cancer, we’re all affected by it.”