Dr John Bellany HRSA
Born in 1942, Bellany spent his formative years in Port Seaton, a fishing village on the East Coast of Scotland where his father and Grandfather were fishermen and boat builders. He was first on a boat at the age of eight and the industry was to have a significant influence throughout all of his life.
Staunch Calvinist beliefs were also ingrained in his upbringing. Church goers were expected to attend services three times on Sundays. Sin, death, loss, and grief were significant motifs in his work.
From 1960 to 1965 he studied at Edinburgh College of Art where he met his future wife Helen Percy and became lifelong friends with Alexander Moffat RSA. Bellany and Moffat explored the possibilities of figurative painting and staged their ‘Railings Exhibition’ outside the National Gallery of Art during the Edinburgh Festival of 1964. They visited Buchenwald concentration camp in the late-1960s and Bellany was deeply moved by the experience.
After graduating from ECA, he and Helen moved to London where he studied at Royal College of Art. During his teaching career he taught at Brighton College of Art, Winchester College of Art, Croydon College of Art, and Goldsmiths College.
His drawings, paintings and printmaking remained highly expressive and autobiographical. Never more so than after a lifesaving experimental liver transplant in 1988 when he started to draw himself immediately after regaining consciousness. He went on to paint Professor Sir Roy Calne, the pioneering surgeon who saved his life as part of his ‘Addenbrookes Serious’. After discharge he saw the world in bright colours, referring to it as “seeing in cinema scope”. Further ill health was to continue, and he suffered three heart attacks throughout his life.
His holiday home and surrounding landscapes in Barga, Tuscany offered inspiration and he painted many of its landscapes.
Portraits of his many famous friends are held in significant collections including the National Gallery of Scotland, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britian.
He was elected as an HRSA in 1987.
