Bellany's paintings are imbued with a sense of both place and history, each piece serving as a testament to his enduring connection to the sea, his family, and his roots in the fishing community of Port Seton.

A large-scale exhibition of works held by the Bellany Estate, Anchored in Time reflects on the legacy of a man who became renowned as a stylistic rebel, defying the conventions of twentieth-century art. In 1963, John Bellany boldly showcased his paintings on the railings of Castle Terrace during the Edinburgh Festival. In the following years, he and fellow artist Sandy Moffat daringly displayed their works outside the Scottish National Gallery and the Royal Scottish Academy-an act that symbolized their status as outsiders to the traditional art establishment.

Best known for capturing the lives of Scotland's east coast fishing communities, Bellany was born in June 1942 in Port Seton, East Lothian, to a family with deep roots in the local fishing community. Both Port Seton and his mother's hometown of Eyemouth were devoutly religious, steeped in the superstitions and traditions of Presbyterian faith. These influences left an indelible mark on Bellany's imagination and would resonate throughout his career. At Edinburgh College of Art, Bellany quickly gained a reputation as a maverick, rejecting the popular style of belle peinture in favour of a new realism in Scottish art. His early works, particularly those depicting the Port Seton fishing community, reveal a clear affinity with the work of Gustave Courbet, whose rural themes are treated with the grandeur of history painting. Bellany continued his studies at the Royal College of Art in London from 1964, where he distinguished himself as a figurative painter at a time when abstraction and minimalism dominated the art scene.

By the 1970s, Bellany's work began to gain significant recognition. He was awarded the prestigious Athena Art Award, one of the UK's most valuable art prizes at the time. In addition to numerous solo exhibitions, major retrospectives of his work were held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1986 and at the Hamburg Kunsthalle two years later. A serious illness in the 1980s marked a turning point in his career, but after a steady recovery, Bellany's art took a new direction, returning to classical subjects-once central to his formal training-as well as exploring landscapes and seascapes for the first time.

A sense of serenity pervades Bellany's later work as he revisited the fishing communities of his youth. A series of retrospectives culminated in the landmark exhibition A Passion for Life at the Scottish National Gallery in 2012. Among the highlights of the exhibition was Bellany's self-portrait Bellany at 70, created specifically for the show, which has not been publicly displayed since. Reflecting on the importance of this exhibition, Bellany remarked, "I was overcome with tears. It's the pinnacle of my whole existence."