John Bellany: In Conversation with Bill Hare and Sandy Moffat

Sandy Moffat and Bill Hare, the curators of the City Art Centre's summer 2025 Exhibition ‘John Bellany: A Life in Self-Portraiture’ will discuss the life and work of John Bellany, followed by an audience discussion on a range of important themes and features in the work of Bellany and how they are integral to this major exhibition. 

Bill Hare was born in Edinburgh in 1944 and studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Courtauld Institute, University of London, in the 1970s.
He has taught art history at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art and the Open University. In 1985 he was appointed Exhibition Organiser at Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, working with many Scottish and international artists.Since 1995 he has concentrated on teaching and freelance curating, focussing on Scottish art since 1945. He has curated a number of important exhibitions both in Scotland and abroad, and has published books and catalogues on a range of different aspects of historical, modern and contemporary Scottish art. He was previously the Curator of The University of Edinburgh’s Fine Art Collection and is currently an Honorary Fellow in Scottish art history at the University of Edinburgh.

Sandy Moffat is an artist and teacher. Born in Dunfermline in 1943, he studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art. From 1968 to 1978 he was the Director of the New 57 Gallery in Edinburgh. In 1979 he joined the staff of The Glasgow School of Art where he was Head of Painting from 1992 until his retirement in 2005. His portraits of the major poets of the Scottish Renaissance movement now hang in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and his paintings are represented in many private and public collections, including the Yale Centre for British Art, USA and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. He was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy in 2004 and awarded an OBE for his services to the arts in 2006. Facing the Nation, by Bill Hare, a survey of Moffat’s portraits from the 1960s onwards was published in 2018 by Luath Press.