The provostal portrait of Barney Crockett – no, not that one – has been unveiled at Aberdeen Art Gallery.
And The Press and Journal must make the quite unusual assurance that, within the painting, the former Lord Provost’s head is firmly attached to the rest of him.
The curtain was raised on the artwork, by Northfield portraitist Brodie Wilson, at an event at the gallery on Saturday.
Brodie has attracted attention in the Aberdeen art community with a gruesome portrait depicting his course leader beheaded.
It’s Mr Crockett’s second run at commissioning a portrait after he handed over the ceremonial provostal chains at the end of his time in office.
On the eve of the May 2022 council election, The Press and Journal uncovered his first attempt – by Russian artist George Dmitriev, controversially displaying the flag of the Russian Navy.
Commissioned on a trip to an energy conference in Moscow, it emerged months later as Russia’s illegal invasion brought war to Ukraine.
In this article with exclusive interviews with Brodie and Mr Crockett, we’ll reveal:
- What the pair bonded over as they became friends and what Brodie learned about the former Lord Provost
- How Barney Crockett kept his head
- The very latest with the Russian portrait
- And why it might have been a little awkward between Lord Provost David Cameron and his predecessor Mr Crockett at the unveiling…
Who is Brodie Wilson and how did he end up painting Barney Crockett’s provostal portrait?
Brodie Wilson was just finishing his studies at Gray’s School of Art when he was scouted for the shortlist for the historic commission.
His work, more often focused on “unusual subject matter, psychological themes, things that you might even call uncomfortable”, caught the eye of council staff at end of year degree show.
By September 2023, he was approached for the job, spending the next few months getting to know Barney on tours of portrait vaults of the Town House and Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen.
He had the Labour-turned-Independent strike various poses before setting about the three-month process of putting paint to canvas.
“We just kind of got yapping immediately which I think is a good sign,” Brodie, 25, tells me.
“The impression I got from him was that he’s a people person so it seemed important to make it feel like he was a person you could sit down and chat to when you look at the painting.
“He’s very sociable. Whenever he would tell stories, it’s always about the people he met and his interaction with them, so I wanted the portrait to feel very warm and welcoming.”
Barney Crockett’s lord provost portrait joins historic vault of paintings
As they took in Aberdeen’s centuries-worth of portraits of past lord provosts, the pair found inspiration.
The archive dates back to the late 1600s.
It was a welcome change of environment for Brodie, who has soaked the finest details out of the portraits by Joshua Reynolds, Francis Bacon and Ken Curry in Aberdeen Art Gallery since the days of going with his grandmother as a child.
At the Town House, one that kept coming up was Alberto Morocco’s 1978 portrait of John Smith, Lord Kirkhill.
A key figure in Aberdeen’s oil boom, he’s sat in a pinstriped blue suit against a monochrome blue background.
“And it ended up informing my painting quite a lot… not too many thrills that distract from the man himself,” Brodie tells me.
“The archive of portraits run the gamut, from the elegantly simple to the very, very grand ones where the lord provost looks like a character in a play.
“The only rule Barney and I established was he wasn’t to be in the robes or the hat.
“And I think that seems rather important and fitting to portray the man he is and not the position.”
To be(head), or not to be(head), that is the question
That simplicity is a leap away from the work which won Brodie the attention of Aberdeen Art Gallery staff, and his first official commission, in the first place.
His degree show portfolio is inspired by the Renaissance painters and Old Masters he grew up emulating as a pupil at Northfield Academy.
He can still remember the moment his long-serving art teacher, Barry Watt, showed the class the works of Rembrandt and it was “the best thing I’d ever seen”.
And as years of study came to an end at Gray’s School of Art, Brodie decided the degree show was his chance to “really push the boat out and have one absolutely ludicrous thing that will just wow people”.
His 3-metre-by-1.5-metre “most ridiculous and unsellable” piece was snapped up almost immediately.
It was accompanied by another eye-catcher: a portrait of the laughing, beheaded figures of his older brother Joshua and Michael Agnew, the painting course leader at Gray’s.
But Mr Crockett was spared the same grisly fate.
Barney Crockett spared the chop
Ahead of the unveiling, both laughed off the prospect of the portrait including a headless former lord provost.
But they suggested it could perhaps be a private commission for the future.
Showing the art history knowledge that proved the basis of his friendship with Brodie, the Dyce, Buckburn, Danestone councillor joked he had visions of himself in a grotesque painting by fantastical Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch.
As well as Mr Crockett’s continued efforts to share books on the Old Masters from his packed library, Brodie believes Mr Crockett took to him because of his background.
The portraitist, who has lived in Northfield all his life, says: “I think he liked the fact that we’re both from traditional working class stock of Aberdeen.
“He grew up in Old Fittie and I’m from Northfield so there’s a kind of connection there.
“So we bonded over that and…Â art actually, which I really wasn’t expecting to begin with.”
Brodie’s story ‘inspirational’
Mr Crockett meanwhile took “great joy” in showing off the “great wealth of portraiture” Aberdeen boasts.
He was wowed when he eventually saw the finished work at Brodie’s home.
“Brodie is a landmark artist in the story of Aberdeen, I have no doubt,” he tells me.
“He had a very immediate grasp of me I think. He didn’t need me to sit for very long, though we met a lot.
“He’s a fantastic painter with a great future and I hope I have become a friend of his in the time we’ve been working together.
“It’s a great inspirational story for young people in the city.”
Ok fine, you’ve got this far. Here’s the story on the other portrait…
But wait! Didn’t Barney Crockett already sit for a Lord Provost portrait?
As Lord Provost and president of the World Energy Cities Partnership, Barney Crockett attended Russian Energy Week in October 2021.
He spoke at the conference, sharing the bill with President Vladimir Putin.
It was approaching the end of his time as Lord Provost and the rising cost of portraiture was firmly in mind.
“The price of portraits has rocketed, and so to get one at the kind of money budgeted would be very difficult,” Mr Crockett previously told The P&J.
One thought to make the £10,000 pot stretch further was to sound out contacts in Russia.
And so the Moscow Caledonian Club set him up with seascape artist George Dmitriev.
By March 2022, Mr Crockett was telling us that Russia’s “catastrophic” invasion of Ukraine meant the project was “very much in the deep freeze, long term”.
He pledged no public cash would be used to pay for it at a time when Russian assets were being frozen in the UK.
The P&J unearths Barney Crockett’s first provostal portrait
Then, only weeks before he stood for re-election, The P&J came into possession of an image of the painting.
We worked very hard to verify it, as the then Lord Provost refused to comment.
And it’s fair to say the public – and even one of our reporters’ old art teachers – were unimpressed by the likeness when we lifted the curtain.
However, Brodie too has said Mr Crockett posed him problems.
“He was quite tough to paint actually,” he admits.
“I had the hardest time getting his likeness, more than any other person I’ve painted.”
Where is Barney Crockett’s unofficial Lord Provost portrait now?
But what drew the most criticism of Dmitriev’s portrait was the backdrop.
Kilted Crockett stood with Marischal College behind him to one side, and two flags to the other.
The first was the Scottish Saltire, while the second was its inverse; the ensign of the Russian Navy.
And as Russia was condemned for its invasion into Ukraine, it became clear why it was in the “deep freeze”.
Now, Mr Crockett lifts the lid on its whereabouts.
Moscow’s shrine to Barney Crockett
“I didn’t receive the first portrait,” he tells me briskly.
“It was a sort of personal venture. The council didn’t do anything about that one.
“I have made arrangements with the Moscow Caledonia Club and it will retained in their possession.”
“So it was never your intention to have that as your official portrait?” I probe.
Mr Crockett replies: “It might have happened. It was a possibility.
“But no money or anything changed hands.”
I ask for more: “As in no council money went towards it or you didn’t pay for it?”
Making clear that he doesn’t want to speak any more about it, Mr Crockett concludes: “I made a personal arrangement about it.
“I will leave it at that. I don’t want to say much about the folk involved.”
Provostal portraits: a lasting tradition?
The history buff is asked if many other lord provosts would have sat for two official portraits, and the tension eases.
“I think that was probably very common,” with sudden enthusiasm.
“Certainly my great hero Tommy Mitchell has one at the council and another hanging in the Seven Incorporated Trades building.
“I think in previous eras Lord Provosts would have been in great demand for a portrait… maybe things have changed,” he laughs.
While Lord Provost, Mr Crockett faced criticism for the £10,000 funding that was earmarked for his portrait.
When in opposition, now Lib Dem council co-leader Ian Yuill pressed for photographic portraits to be commissioned to ease the burden on the Common Good.
Brodie tells me: “I’m quite romantic about art and painting and there’s something about a portrait that I don’t think a photograph will ever really capture, it says just something a little bit more about someone’s character sometimes.”
But neighbouring Aberdeenshire Council has been taking photographs of Provosts for more than a decade – and it’s something current Lord Provost David Cameron said was “certainly on the table”.
Despite that, the same £10,000 has been earmarked for his lasting depiction, a budget Mr Crockett thinks “will be an issue in times to come” – he’s already blamed it for needing to look to Russia in the first place.
“Portraits and portraitists are in great demand,” Mr Crocketts says.
“I think we have been very fortunate with Brodie and in 10 or 20 years time he’s probably going to be commanding very big fees. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Keep your head: Possible tension between two Lord Provosts at portrait unveiling
Former Lord Provost Barney Crockett’s provostal portrait was unveiled at Aberdeen Art Gallery on Saturday afternoon, at a by-invitation-only reveal.
As well as artist Brodie being there to lift the curtain, Mr Crockett’s successor Lord Provost David Cameron was on hand.
The pair were all smiles for the cameras… but less than 24 hours earlier, they were furious at each other.
As the future of Aberdeen city centre’s bus gates was decided at the Town House, Mr Crockett lambasted the Lord Provost for “badgering” councillors as they scrutinised the unpopular scheme.
Mr Cameron flared: “Excuse me, excuse me!
“I think you are forgetting you don’t sit in this seat any more.”
There was much table-thumping applause from the SNP benches.
Not one to shy away from confrontation, Mr Crockett later deprecated the Lord Provost’s “personal and infantile comment”.
“I think makes you look rather less than your post,” he added, not a day before cheesing it up next to his direct replacement and the painting he’ll hope ends a saga which nearly cost him his head.
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