The death of internationally renowned Scottish artist John Bellany at the end of August saddened many admirers in Edinburgh and across the country.
Born at Port Seton in 1942, his fishing-community origins continued to inspire him as he progressed from Edinburgh College of Art in the 1960s to the Royal College of Art in London and on. He was awarded the CBE in 1994.
It may come as a surprise to locals to learn that for four decades he had a close working relationship with Edinburgh Printmakers on Union Street, and as its most prolific collaborating artist produced over 60 print editions. Most of these were produced on-site in partnership with Master Printer Alfons Bytautas, who writes of the artist’s
... highly personal mythology, blending both fact and fiction and populating it with the tragic figures of fisher-folk, animals (both real an imaginary) and thinly disguised self-portraits. His work is richly allegorical and yet he convinced us to accept his dream-like world as real. Perhaps it was the absolute sincerity with which he rendered this inner vision that enables us to enter into the extraordinary world he created.
Selected from the Edinburgh Printmakers archive, 24 previously uncollected prints will feature in the Gallery from Saturday in an exhibition to celebrate Bellany’s life and career. A further 20 or so – framed and unframed – will appear in the shop. All are for sale.
John Bellany: A Life in Print will run from 12 October to 9 November. A free talk by Alexander Moffat – ‘Images of Mortality: John Bellany as a Graphic Artist’ – will start at 2pm on Saturday. Booking is essential.
The two images shown here – ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ (1987, Monotype) and ‘Woman with Tambour’ (1995, Etching) – appear courtesy of the artist and Edinburgh Printmakers.