A SELF portrait by one of "the most singular Scottish artists of the 20th century" has been bought by the National Galleries of Scotland.

Womb from Womb, by William Crosbie, who lived from 1915 to 1999, has been bought for £12,750 from the artist's estate, via the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.

It will now be included in the Modern Portrait display, which re-opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh on 30 March.

The work, painted in 1941, is, the NGS said, "the most ambitious painted portrait of the artist’s career."

Christopher Baker, director of European and Scottish Art and Portraiture at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: "Crosbie’s impressive self-portrait is a significant addition to the National Galleries’ unrivalled collection of Scottish art.

"It’s a complex and thought-provoking work which combines three fascinating elements – the artist himself, glimpses of his wartime studio, and an intriguing painting in progress on the easel.

"With rich decorative and lighting effects and elements of spatial ambiguity, it’s an unnerving portrait that pays homage to European surrealism, but in a wholly distinctive and individual manner."

William, or Bill, Crosbie has work represented in many major Scottish museums and galleries, the British Museum in London, and in private collections throughout the United Kingdom and overseas.

Born to Scottish parents in Hankow in China, the family moved to Glasgow in 1926 and Crosbie studied at the Glasgow Academy and Glasgow School of Art.

Crosbie travelled to Paris in 1937 and enrolled there in the influential French art school, the École des Beaux-Arts, where he became familiar with the latest trends in European painting.

At the end of his scholarship, Crosbie ventured to Egypt to work with the Royal Archaeological Institute on an expedition to the newly-excavated Temple of the Bulls and Temple of Saqqara, the burial grounds for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis.

There, Crosbie copied the four thousand year old friezes on the temple walls.

The artist returned to Scotland in 1939 and found work painting murals,including for the Festival of Britain in 1951, altarpieces, book illustrations and scenery designs for the ballet.

He set up studio in Glasgow, and was later elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and throughout his life, regularly exhibited with the Royal Glasgow Institute.

Crosbie painted Womb from Womb during the Second World War, in 1941.

The galleries said:"It is a monumental self-portrait demonstrating Crosbie’s increasing interest in surrealism.

"The painting was made five years after the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, which was hugely influential on the art of many English and Scottish painters.

"Such surrealist work was however a rarity among the relative conservatism of the Scottish art scene of the period, and so demonstrates Crosbie’s innovative and highly inventive outlook."