John Bellany Self Portrait, 1983

This pencil self-portrait is by Scottish painter John Bellany, best known for his distinctive figurative paintings that fused Christian iconography and maritime imagery with representations of the lives of ordinary working people.  One of Scotland’s leading postwar painters, Bellany's often dark, introspective paintings confronted issues of morality, morality and religion in a style critic Janet McKenzie describes as ‘at once realist, expressionist and surrealist.’  

Bellany was born in Port Seton, near Edinburgh, into a family of fishermen and boatbuilders. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art, before gaining a scholarship for travel around Europe, and then going on to attend the Royal College of Art. Bellany's work has been exhibited at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; and the National Gallery of China, Bejing. His paintings are in the collections of major museums and art galleries throughout the world, including the National Gallery of Scotland; the Tate Gallery; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.