John Bellany

I've been meaning to write about him for months ever since I saw Jen Gray's post about meeting him in Italy.

My mother was at art college with him. Very hard working she said. Some of her fellow students were terrible wasters....

Many years later some family friends who had also been at art college with him fell on hard times and had to move to the country and downsize into a small cottage.What to do with the JohnBellany they had bought from him at his degree showing? They hoped to sell it but in the meanwhile my parents stored it for them and for about 8 years it hung in my parents hallway. A picture all in ochres of his grandmother on a boat gutting fish. He grew up in a fishing village outside Edinburgh. A huge picture 6' x 4'. I'm not a fan of Bellany's work but that picture grew into me. Eventually despite trying very hard to get the Modern Art Gallery to buy it the friends sold it to a private corporate collection in the City of London. It probably sits opposite a hedge fund manager. And it explains why I was unable to find an image of it on Google.