John Bellany

Bethel by John Bellany © the artist. Southampton City Art Gallery

A Passion for Life

This exhibition marking John Bellany’s 70th birthday will contain paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints from all the key periods of the artist’s career. Beginning with the celebrated large-scale paintings of fisherfolk and their boats that Bellany hung on the railings outside the Royal Scottish Academy building in the mid-1960s; through the darker, even harrowing pictures of the early 1970s that show the impact of Bellany’s visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany; the wild, expressionist paintings of the late 1970s and early 1980s, that seem to explode and disintegrate as Bellany battled with his inner demons; the remarkably honest and courageous watercolours and drawings that Bellany made about his liver transplant and near miraculous recovery; to the richly coloured allegorical paintings that the artist has produced since then reflecting a renewed vigour and optimism as he travelled the world and set down roots in Italy, England and, of course Scotland. Read more …