Death of John Bellany

I was sad to read on the front page of The Herald today of the death of one of Scotland's most famous artists, John Bellany. 

His work was strongly rooted in his Port Seton fishing community childhood, and was full of eerie mystical characters who seemed to be involved in some sort of great mythical elemental struggle, often portrayed in his characteristic palette of strong reds and yellow hues.

 John Bellany, Celtic Allegory (Oil on canvas)

This is The Ventriloquist, from 1983. 

John Bellany, The Ventriloquist © the Artist's Estate / Bridgeman Art Library. All rights reserved

Forming out of agitated brushwork, a skeletal figure holds up two skate, which seem to be acting as the mouthpiece for the dead person.  But it is difficult to make out what they are trying to communicate.  It is as if those who have been through the rigours of storms and who have died at sea are trying to speak, but can't quite be understood.  It is as if the dead are amongst the living, and the past is continually within the present.  

Thus all that is in Bellany's life finds its expression and outpouring in his very personal work.

The 1980s were a time of great personal crises for Bellany, including health problems of three heart attacks (one outside his own exhibition) and a liver transplant.  Famously, he even painted whilst he was in hospital, gravely ill.  His illness became a subject for artistic exploration, even though he was near death.

John Bellany Self-Portrait with Oxygen Mask (from ʼThe Addenbrookes Hospital Seriesʼ) (1988) © the Artist's Estate/ Bridgeman Art Library. All rights reserved

Now a statement on his official website says: 

"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of a true Scottish giant.  At seventeen minutes past seven on the evening of Wednesday August 28 John passed away, in his studio, surrounded by his family.  He was clutching a paint brush in his hand as he took his final breath.  His passion was life and he painted as if each day was his last."

It's quite a way to go - in the studio, brush in hand, as his family stands around him.  It's such a powerful, romantic, cinematic image, that it could be one of his own paintings.

He was a very prolific artist, always painting, painting, and drawing, pouring all the passion and energy of his tumultuous, event-filled life into the art.  

There's a really nice little film about Bellany HERE.  

It was made in February this year, and has art historian Alastair Sooke sitting cross-legged on a couch interviewing John Bellany about his retrospective at the National Gallery of Scotland, called A Passion for Life.

Poignantly, the film ends with Bellany exclaiming, "I love being alive! 

"I'm looking forward to the retrospective at 90!" enthuses Sooke, who's clearly captivated by Bellany and all his intense, dark energy. 

"I can't promise that, but I'll do my best, replies Bellany, with a rueful sigh.

He died yesterday at 71.

 

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

During the Christmas break, I was through in Edinburgh and visited the newly refurbished Scottish National Portrait Gallery.  Apparently it has had £17.6 million lavished on it..

It's a beautiful Arts and Crafts building, and the world’s first purpose-built portrait space. The restoration project has opened up previously inaccessible parts of the building and increased the public space by more than 60 per cent. 

If you go expecting to see lots of paintings of people in a parade of famous and historical faces, you'll be disappointed.  It's more about a portrait of a country and its achievements, and isn't merely paintings, but that's the modern museum way of organising and presenting material.  

There's a new gallery dedicated to photography, showing romantically nostalgic highland landscapes and some gritty urban urchins, as well as Annan's amazing photographs of closes.

Thomas Annan, Close No 101 High Street, Glasgow (Albumen print,1868)

 

There's 'Pioneers of Science', containing a large and sobering Ken Currie portrait Three Oncologists, with some very interesting contextualising material about the doctors portrayed.  

 

Ken Currie, Three Oncologists (Oil on canvas 2002)

 

There's also an amazing cast of the head of Dolly the Sheep - a clone of a clone - which I thought was just astonishing.

It's not a piece of art as such, and isn't credited with a maker, but as far as I'm concerned it's a far more powerful piece than anything Damien Hurst has ever come up with.  You can see the scrim poking out, and the unevenness of the plaster where the cast has run up against Dolly's thick wool, so it has a roughness and lovely textural excitement about it.  It has a beautiful shape a rhythm to it, bourne out of the necessity of being unable to cast any further than the non-woolly parts of her head.  It was cast on the day she was put to sleep, so it's a death mask, and as such is a very poignant image.  

 

It's not often sheep are named and imortalised, but here Dolly is.  She looks almost like one of the Elgin marbles.

 

Also on display, unfortunately, was John Bellany's portrait of Billy Connolly - a painting so bad that even when you knew who it was, you still couldn't recognise him....

John Bellany, Billy Connolly (Oil on canvas 2004)

No wonder he had to write who it was underneath - or is it just me?

Anyway, if you do get the chance to go to Edinburgh, do visit the Portrait Gallery.  Or if you've been, let me know what you thought....