The Girls in the Pictures: Joan Eardley and the Samson Children

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

BBC Radio 4 FM

Documentaries

Factual

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

BBC Radio 4 - The Girls in the Pictures: Joan Eardley and the Samson Children

Audrey Gillan meets the 'Samson girls' of Joan Eardley's famous paintings.

The 'Samson girls' of Joan Eardley's paintings have come to represent a certain image of Glasgow in the postwar years before urban development. Audrey Gillan meets them now.

As the 50s turned to the 60s, a family of twelve brothers and sisters became the subject of portraits by the painter Joan Eardley. The Samson family lived in poverty in a crumbling part of Glasgow called Rottenrow where tenements were marked for demolition. Their faces and features held idiosyncrasies – squints, buck teeth, missing teeth, fiery red hair - that captivated Eardley.  Drawn by the warmth of the stove and the promise of thruppence, the children had the run of her studio.

Ann and Pat Samson are two of the children captured in time in Eardley's emblematic paintings. Back then they were painted side by side. They remain so to this day, sitting talking with Audrey Gillan who grew up with their images. The hand-to-mouth existence that underlined their childhood is still not far away, as they reflect on their lives then and now.

Presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Girls in the Pictures: Joan Eardley and the Samson Children

Genres

Formats

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4