John Bellany

John Bellany is a painter of Nordic mystical power. One of the great masters of our time, no doubt about it – Alan Davie

John Bellany’s 13 th Beaux Arts exhibition is a selection covering the five decades of his career, with two paintings dating from his first trip north of the Arctic circle at the end of 2007. These Lapland pictures are indicative of the autobiographical nature of his subject matter, his total oeuvre spinning one of the most fantastic yarns in the history of art.

That is a tall claim but undeniable. The technology which has saved his life more than once was not available to previous generations. Had he been born any earlier we should have been deprived of the full flowering of his art, as well as the depths he plumbed to tell the story of his liver transplant in 1988 - the longest operation in the world at that date. That he survived a heart attack in 2006, when he was officially declared to have been ‘dead’ on a pavement in Glasgow for over a minute, now happily registers - again thanks to technology - as a mere footnote.

It makes sense therefore to see Bellany’s art as the log of a voyage – what else could one call the story of this most searching painter of the epic relationship of man and the sea? - and to discuss the selection in chronological order, each decade having its particular character.

Carel Weight remembered that his former protégé and pupil at the Royal College of Art had ‘tremendous roots’. Bellany’s art is rooted in everything to do with his well-documented upbringing as the son of the skipper of a ‘skiff’ (a 40 ft boat for herring fishing with half-a-dozen crew) working out of Port Seton in the days before science had eroded religion, before the negative effect of technology had homogenised social and national distinction, replaced music-making and reading with television, endangered fish stocks and even placed mankind’s very existence at risk.

To a rationalist like the militantly atheist Richard Dawkins it might seem to have been a dark age of religion and superstition, when the prawns destined for his sandwich were chucked overboard as ‘vermin’ and the only answers to the devilish forces of nature were the sacred promise of the church and the profane oblivion offered by the pub. But people lived closer to nature then and, for all that there were rich and poor, it was a more neighbourly society in consequence. In addition, with scientific ignorance there was wonder, with religion came knowledge, discipline and respect - not just in the present but for the past.

The two paintings from the 1960s, The Down-and-Out and Lost Soul, date from when Bellany was living in London for the first time as a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Art. Not everyone in London at that swinging time was cruising the King’s Road at the wheel of an E-type Jaguar. The recently married John and Helen Bellany, soon proud parents of the infant Jonathan, were coping on a student bursary which made no allowance for marriage, let alone children.

While the fashion for all things American saw pop art succeeded by cool minimalism Bellany stuck to his traditional guns, disdaining what he dismissed as the DDFs (dedicated followers of fashion) to ally himself with the old European masters in search of eternal verities. At this time he became keenly aware of the dichotomy of his Presbyterian birthright from reading James Hogg’s dark psychological masterpiece, The Private Confessions of a Justified Sinner: the story of a boy of strict Calvinist training, who is persuaded by a stranger, the devil as it transpires, to commit a series of murders on the understanding that, as a member of the elect, no sin can deprive of him salvation. The fact that the reader is never sure whether the devil is real or a figment of the boy’s imagination makes it all the more disturbing. No wonder The Private Confessions was so admired by the surrealists.

There is a bleakness about much of Bellany’s 1960s work which testifies to his strictly religious (church attendance three times on the Sabbath) and nature-ruled upbringing. Fishing and mining were the mainstay of East Lothian employment in his youth, both industries plying the depths at risk of death. But from the start there is an assured historical awareness and respect in his painting, derived from many apprentice hours copying from the wonderful collection in Edinburgh’s National Gallery. And yet he was always his own man, the skipper of his own boat, with a rare sense of destiny and an awareness of death unusual in one so young, although not in a community dependent on the sea.

Bellany’s ‘tramp’ in her defiantly scarlet tights (in fact posed by the Goya-esque Antoinette, a willingly collaborative Royal College model) would not have looked out of place in a Netherlandish painting from four centuries before; but is that collaged newspaper ‘napkin’ the origin of those fragments of minced ‘newsprint’ (with their collaged letraset letters) which became a favourite motif of Francis Bacon from 1970? Bellany’s external College ‘studio’ was within yards of Bacon’s own, a source of daily inspiration to the young man who nonetheless kept a respectful distance in their ‘local’, The Zetland. Despite this lack of direct contact it is quite possible Bacon saw a version of Down-and-Out. For all his aloof independence he kept an eye on things. And what Soul could be more Lost than the old man clasping his bottle, haunted by the ominous flock of crows from Van Gogh’s last painting or, as applicably, the seagulls which scavenge the wake of boats. Both works are painted on hardboard, an economic measure rather than an aesthetic choice.

The 1960s seem like the gathering of the storm which raged in the 1970s. The 1970s paintings reflect the turbulence in Bellany’s own life: a period when his marriage to Helen ended in divorce – in the aftermath he even briefly stopped working - and he embarked on a second marriage doomed to end in the premature death of his new wife, Juliet.

TheAccordion Player and only marginally less hectic two-faced Janus, Roman god of exits and entrances, surveyor of past and future, both painted in 1975, are two torrid examples from this period, when Bellany drove representation to the verge of abstraction. There is a northern fierceness to this expressionistic work which positions him with the German painting he so admires – his first trip to the Tate as an Edinburgh student was to see a Kokoschka retrospective. And it makes him a foreign precursor of the expressionist revival among post-Second War German painters, which achieved international acclaim in the early 1980s. There is certainly no British figurative artist who has taken expressionism to more passionate extremes.

The 1980s saw John and Helen remarried, to the delight of their three children, Jonathan, Paul and Anya, and also the slow deterioration of his health and eventual life-saving surgery in 1988. The brutal Accordion Player (Bellany is an accomplished accordionist and pianist) is no less morbid than The Accordionist done shortly before his health broke down completely eight years later. The kiss of Life 1984 dates from the year he re-joined Helen and finally gave up the ‘amber nectar’ or, by then, the Bacardi. It is proof of his rare energy that booze never disrupted his relentless working schedule, which he maintains to this day. One rule he observes is to paint a self-portrait on his birthday, 18 June. Self portrait in chef’s hat celebrated one of his presents by depicting him as a greedy chef, le patron mange ici - a black irony, since he was hardly capable of eating by this stage of his illness.

After plumbing the depths in the 1980s there is a sense of joyful release as his post-operative strength returns. Soon after leaving hospital he wrote in emphatic capitals to his old friend Sandy Moffat: ‘COLOUR IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING’ and so it remains. There had been colour in the early work but never for the sheer joy of it. Flowers, a subject he had previously disregarded, were one discovery, worldwide travel another. Italy was his favourite country and since they bought a country house near Barga, northern Tuscany, in 2000, the Bellanys have lived several months a year there. He now commutes between properties in Barga, Cambridgeshire and Edinburgh, each with a studio-room fully equipped so he can arrive unencumbered and go straight to work.

Having a top-floor flat in Edinburgh, with a view over the Firth of Forth to the foothills of the Highlands, keeps him rooted to home however far he roams. More sophisticated drugs and reliable facilities abroad now allow him to visit parts of the world previously out-of-bounds. In 2003 he went to China and the Far East and in 2005 had the unique privilege for a British painter of an exhibition at the national galleries of Beijing and Shanghai. Typically, he painted the pictures for the show during an extended stay prior to the opening.

Wherever he paints he returns insistently to the sights and memories of his upbringing, with a mythological cast of his own invention conjured from the myth and magic of his formative years in Port Seton or down the coast, past the talismanic Bass Rock, to his grandparents at Eyemouth in Berwickshire. One is reminded of his early mentor Hugh McDiarmid’s lines in the poem Deep Sea Fishing: ‘I kent their animal forms and primitive minds, like fish frae the sea.’

It was through Barga connections that the Bellanys visited Lapland, their friend Andreas Marcouci, the Italian Deputy Minister for Culture, and Leonardo Mordini having opened a hotel there in a former castle. They attended the opening festivities just before Christmas. Munch has long been another of John Bellany’s masters, so the trip proved a further circle completed. ‘Everywhere you looked you saw Munch!’ He exclaims; and Munch seems to haunt the watercolour Lutheran Church, Gallivare, Lapland and oil on canvas Fjalinas Castle, Lapland , as much as that spectral sun.

John McEwen

Author of John Bellany (Mainstream)

Biography 

1942 Born in Port Seton, Scotland
1960-65 Edinburgh College of Art. 
Studied painting under Sir Robin Philipson and Sir William Gillies 
1965 68 Royal College of Art, London. 
Studied under Carel Weight and Peter de Francia 
1967 Official cultural visit to East Germany 
with Alan Bold and Alexander Moffat: 
visited Dresden, Halle, Weimar, East Berlin and 
the Concentration Camp of Buchenwald 
1968 Lecturer in Painting, Brighton College of Art 
1969-73 Lecturer in Painting, Winchester College of Art. 
Visiting Lecturer at Royal College of Art, 
London and Goldsmiths College of Art, London 
1978-84 Lecturer in Painting, Goldsmiths College of Art, London 
Lecturer in Painting, Royal College of Art, London 
1983 Artist in Residence, Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne 
1988 Elected Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge 
1994 Awarded CBE by Her Majesty The Queen 
1996 Awarded Honorary Doctorate, University of Edinburgh 
1998 Honorary D Lit, Heriot Watt, University of Edinburgh 
1999 Senior Fellow, Royal College of Art, London 
2002 Awarded the Freedom of San Cristoforo, Barga 
2005 Awarded the Freedom of East Lothian 

 Solo Exhibitions 

1965 Dromidaris Gallery, Holland 
1968 Edinburgh College of Art 
1969 Winchester School of Art 
1970 Drian Gallery, London 
Hendricks Gallery, Dublin 
1971 New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh 
Printmakers Workshop, Edinburgh 
Drian Gallery, London 
1972 Royal College of Art, London 
1973 Triad Arts Centre, Bishop's Stortford 
Edinburgh City Arts Centre 
Drian Gallery, London 
1974 Drian Gallery, London 
1975 Aberdeen City Art Gallery 
1977 Acme Gallery, London 
1978 Glasgow Print Studio Gallery 
Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh 
Printmakers Workshop Gallery, Edinburgh 
Crawford Arts Centre Gallery, St. Andrews 
1979 Glasgow Print Studio Gallery 
Third Eye Centre, Glasgow 
Southampton City Art Gallery 
Newcastle Polytechnic Art Gallery 
Glasgow Print Studio Gallery 
1980 Acme Gallery, London 
Moira Kelly Fine Art, London 
1981 Goldsmiths College Gallery, London 
1982 Rosa Esman Gallery, New York 
1983 Paintings 1971-1982, touring exhibition to: 
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham 
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield 
Third Eye Centre, Glasgow 
Rochdale Art Gallery, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon Tyne 
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 
Rosa Esman Gallery , New York 
Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne 
1984 Dusseldorf Gallery, Perth 
Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney 
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney 
Mercury Gallery, Edinburgh 
Rosa Esman Gallery , New York 
1986 National Portrait Gallery, London 
Fischer Fine Art, London 
Galerie Krikhaar, Amsterdam 
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 
and Serpentine Gallery, London (retrospective) 
Inaugural Exhibition for opening of Henry Moore Gallery, 
Royal College of Art, London 
1987 Peacock Gallery, Aberdeen 
Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London 
The Old Man and the Sea: Paintings and Prints', 
Compass Gallery, Glasgow 
Greenhill Galleries, Perth 
Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney 
Butler Gallery, Kilkenny Castle, Ireland 
Hendricks Gallery, Dublin 
Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 
Third Eye Centre, Glasgow 
Recent Acquisitions , National Portrait Gallery, London 
1988 Ruth Siegel Gallery, New York 
Bellany as Printmaker 1965-85 , Third Eye Centre, Glasgow 
Printmakers Workshop Gallery, Edinburgh 
Aberdeen Art Gallery 
Beaux Arts, Bath 
1988-89 Hamburger Kunsthalle and Museum am Ostwall, 
Dortmund (retrospective) 
1989 The Renaissance of John Bellany, Watercolours painted in 
Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge 
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 
Fischer Fine Art, London 
1989 John Bellany ‘A Renaissance’ 
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 
Aberdeen Art Gallery 
Beaux Arts, Bath 
1990 Raab Gallery, Berlin 
Ruth Siegel Gallery , New York 
Compass Gallery, Glasgow 
1991 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 
Fischer Fine Art, London, John Bellany 
"A Long Night's Journey into Day Paintings" 
 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow 
1992 Flowers East Gallery, London 
1993 Flowers East Gallery, London 
Berkeley Square Gallery, London 
1994 Beaux Arts, Bath 
1995 Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York 
Edinburgh Festival Exhibition 
Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh 
Strathclyde University Gallery, Glasgow 
1996 Peacock Gallery, Aberdeen 
MacGeary Gallery, Brussels 
Galeria Kin , Mexico 
1997 John Bellany "A toast to Mexico", Beaux Arts, London 
1998 John Bellany "a Scottish odyssey", Beaux Arts, London 
1998-99 Elaine Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida 
2000 Beaux Arts, London 
Solomon Gallery, Dublin 
2001 John Bellany University of Northumbria 
Haven Beaux Arts, London 
2002 John Bellany at 60 Beaux Arts, London 
60 Birthday Exhibition, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 
Edinburgh 
2003 Beaux Arts, Bath 
Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 
2004 Solomon Gallery, Dublin 
Beaux Arts, London 
Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh ( Edinburgh Festival Exhibition) 
2005 East Lothian exhibitions to celebrate John Bellany’s 
Freeman Award 
National Gallery of China, Bejing 
The John Bellany Odyssey Mitchell Library, Glasgow 
2006 Beaux Arts, London 

 Selected Group Exhibitions 

 1963 Edinburgh Festival Exhibition, hung on railings, Castle Terrace 
(with Alexander Moffat) 
1967 John Moores Exhibition 6, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
1968 London Group 
1971 Scottish Realism, (Scottish Arts Council Touring Exhibition) 
10 Scottish Printmakers , Sussex University 
1972 British Figurative Art, Nova London Gallery, Copenhagen 
1973 Fanfare for Europe, Drian Gallery, London 
Figures in the Landscape , (Arts Council Touring Exhibition) 
London Group , Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 
1974 A Choice Selection, Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh 
British Painting'74' , Hayward Gallery, London 
British Art '74' , Germany (British Council Touring Exhibition) 
John Moores Exhibition 9 , Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
1976 John Moores Exhibition 10, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
1977 25 Years of British Painting, Royal Academy, London 
Expressionism and Scottish Painting , 
(Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition) 
Royal College of Art, London 
Scottish Painting , Edinburgh College of Art 
British Painting , Nottingham Castle 
1979 Scottish Artists, Amos Anderson Gallery, Helsinki 
Tate '79 , Tate Gallery, London 
Independent Irish Artists Exhibition , Municipal 
Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin 
(with Bacon, Crozier and Freud representing Britain) 
British Painting , Oxford University 
The British Art Show , Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 
(and touring exhibition) 
1980 John Moores Exhibition 12, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
(Prize Winner) 
British Art 1940-1980: The Arts Council Collection, 
Hayward Gallery, London 
1981 National Portrait Gallery, London 
13 British Artists , (British Council exhibition touring) Germany 
Art and the Sea , (touring exhibition) 
lan Birksted Gallery, London 
1982 The Subjective Eye, (touring exhibition) 
John Moores Exhibition 13 , Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
Contemporary Choice , Serpentine Gallery, London 
Inner Worlds , (Arts Council touring exhibition) 
Drawing Towards Prints , Printmakers' Workshop, Edinburgh 
1983 Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin 
Self-Portraits , (Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition) 
1984 Scottish Expressionism, Warwick Arts Trust, London 
The Hard-Won Image , Tate Gallery, London 
The British Art Show , (touring exhibition) 
1985 Athena International Awards, Mall Galleries London
 (joint first-prize) 
British Painting , Manchester City Art Galleries; 
Fine Art Society, Edinburgh 
1986 Man and Animals, (Arts Council exhibition), Nottingham Castle 
Celtic Vision , touring exhibition opened in Madrid 
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London 
(every year from 1986-2002) 
1987 Scottish Painting 1954-87, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh 
Warwick Arts Trust, London 
Awarded George Walliston Prize for best work in 
Royal Academy, London 
Represented Britain: Ljubljana Print Biennale, 
Yugoslavia , 2nd Triennale of European Engraving, Grada, Italy 
The Self Portrait , selected by Edward Lucie-Smith and Sean Kelly, 
Artsite Gallery, Bath; 
Fischer Fine Art, London 
The Scottish Bestiary (portfolio of prints touring exhibition), 
The Banqueting House, London 
1988 British Romantic Painting, touring exhibition opened in Madrid 
The Royal College of Art Print Portfolio Exhibition, 
Victoria and Albert Museum, London 
1989 El Greco, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (guest artist) 
Eros in Albion (House of Massaccio) Italy, (British Council Exhibition) 
British Figurative Painting , selected by Norbert Lynton 
Every Picture Tells a Story , (British Council touring exhibition), 
Hong Kong; Singapore; Africa 
Scottish Paintings since 1900 , 
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; 
Barbican Art Gallery, London 
1990 Glasgow's Great British Art Show, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow 
The Compass Contribution , Tramway, Glasgow 
8 Scottish Printmakers , (British Council touring exhibition), 
Singapore ; Glasgow 
Turning the Century; The New Scottish Painting (touring show), 
Raab Gallery, London; Milan, Berlin; USA 
Bellany, Howson, McFadyen , Auchencloss Gallery, New York 
Scotland Creates , McLellan Galleries, Glasgow 
1992 New British Art , Denmark , (British Council Exhibition) 
1993 Scottish Painting, Flowers East, London 
Contemporary Trends in British Art , Hayward Gallery, London 
John Moores Exhibition 18 , Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 
1994 The Bigger Picture, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow 
1995 Contemporary British Artists, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
New York 
1996 Contemporary European Figurative Painting, 
Walter Gropius Gallery, Berlin 
National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 
Contemporary Scottish Painting , Edinburgh City Art Centre 
An American Passion - The Susan Kasen Summer and 
Robert D. Summer collection of contemporary 
British Painting , McLellan Galleries, Glasgow; 
Royal College of Art, London 
Inaugural exhibition of the Collection, Gallery of Modern Art, 
Glasgow 
A Scottish Renaissance , Hong Kong Gallery 
(British Council Exhibition) 
1997 Contemporary Scottish Portraits, 
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh 
British Art from the Arts Council Collection , 
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 
1998 Religious Images, National Gallery of New South Wales, 
Sydney 
Edinburgh Festival Group, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 
25 Years of the Kilkenny Castle Guest Artists Project , Kilkenny 
1999 Rehang with Max Beckmann and 
Stanley Spencer, Tate Gallery, London 
Scottish Artists, Solomon Gallery, Dublin 
Scottish Art Now , Festival Exhibition, Edinburgh City Art Centre 
2000 Beaux Arts, London 
Solomon Gallery, Dublin 
Newcastle University Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne 
The Sea , John Bellany and Sir William McTaggart, 
Edinburgh City Art Centre 
National Gallery of Melbourne, Australia 
Melbourne Millennium Exhibition , representing Britain, 
Bellany, Bacon and Spencer 
2001 Beaux Arts, London 
Scottish National Gallery, Duff House, Banff 
Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 
Pittenween Gallery, Fife 
2002 Beaux Arts, London 
Ricci Foundation Galleries, Barga, Tuscany, Italy 
Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh Solomon Gallery, Dublin 
St. Paul ’s Cathedral, London 
The Enchanted Land : Puccini’s Landscape, 
Lights and Colours Mitchell Library, Glasgow 
National Gallery of China, Beijing 
Shanghai Gallery of Art, China 
European Union Gallery, Brussels 
Royal Academy Summer exhibitions every year from 1985-2005 
Awards, Commissions and Prizes 
1962 Andrew Grant Scholarship; travelled to Paris 
1965 Postgraduate Travelling Scholarship; 
travelled to Holland and Belgium 
Com missioned by Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries 
to paint murals for Chesser House, Edinburgh 
Burston Award at Royal College of Art, London 
1980 John Moores Prize Winner 
1981 Major Arts Council Award 
1985 Athena International Art Award (joint first-prize winner) 
1987 Wollaston Award, Royal Academy, London 
1991 Commissioned to paint Lord Renfrew and 
Sir Roy Caine by the National Portrait Gallery, London 
1992 British Council visit to Central Europe; Prague; 
Vienna; Budapest 
1993 Korn/Ferry Picture of the Year, Royal Academy, 
London 
1995 Glasgow Herald Award for Excellence 
2002 Cheval Medal from City of Florence 
2004 Fishers in the Snow presented to the new S
cottish Parliament 
2005 Honoured by becoming the first Freeman of 
East Lothian 

 Public collections 

 Aberdeen Art Gallery 
Arts Council of Great Britain 
Belfast Polytechnic 
British Council 
British Museum, London 
Chesser House, Edinburgh 
Contemporary Art Society 
Dundee Central Museum and Art Gallery 
Dublin Museum of Modern Art 
Edinburgh Corporation 
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull 
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 
Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums 
Government Art Collection 
Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow 
J. F. Kennedy Library, Boston 
Kassa Kasser Museum , New York 
Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery 
Leeds City Art Gallery 
Leicester Museum and Art Gallery 
Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
Middlesbrough Art Gallery 
Museum of Boca Raton , Florida 
Museum of London 
Museum of Modern Art, New York 
National Gallery of Art, Gdansk 
National Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin 
National Gallery of Poland, Warsaw 
National Library of Congress, Washington 
National Portrait Gallery, London 
New York Public Library 
Perth Museum and Art Gallery 
Royal College of Art, London 
Scottish Arts Council 
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh    
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh    
Sheffield City Art Gallery    
Southampton City Art Gallery   
 Swindon Museum and Art Gallery    
Tate Gallery, London    
University of Western Australia, Perth   
 Victoria and Albert Museum, London   
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester   
 Wolverhampton Municipal Art Gallery and Museum        
 Zuider Zee Museum, Holland