It is an exhibition that features early works by some of Britain’s greatest artists but most eyes will be drawn to a deftly executed nude that dominates a gallery wall at the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh.

It shows a well-built young man, with a towel decorously draped across his lower body. Closer inspec-tion shows that it is a young Sean Connery, then scratching a living by posing for life classes in front of art students in the city.

The painting, by Al Fairweather, features in a wide-ranging exhibition held to mark the centenary of Edinburgh College of Art, which includes important works by a host of internationally acclaimed artists, including Alan Davie, Eduardo Paolozzi, and John Bellany.

The Fairweather portrait shows Connery when he was in his early 20s after he had returned to Edinburgh from a three-year stint in the Royal Navy. By that time he had worked through a succession of deadend jobs and had enrolled at a gym on the Royal Mile when he was selected by the college for life classes.

John Houston, one of a talented group of students that included his wife Elizabeth Blackadder, David Michie and Frances Walker, said: “Connery was one of a group of models from a weightlifting club. One of them started modelling at the college and then got his friends involved.

“It was a paid job and most of them stayed for six months or a year. They would be involved in day classes twice a week, holding the same pose and working from 9.30am until 4.00pm. I vaguely remember drawing Connery, but he made no great impression.”

Soon afterwards, Connery moved to London to pursue the acting career in which he would be cast as James Bond in Dr No, which was released in 1962. Likewise, Fairweather headed south. A brilliant trumpeter, he teamed up with the clarinettist Sandy Brown, to form the All Stars, a band dubbed “the most creative team produced by British jazz”. In its early days, the band played at college dances and recorded their first record at their Edinburgh farewell concert at Usher Hall, before leaving the city for international fame on the jazz circuit.

The exhibition makes clear many more links between the artists who have either taught or been taught at the school. Houston’s early work Poppies and Roses contrasts with his more familiar landscapes and seascapes and is curiously reminiscent of his wife’s paintings, while the deep colours of Blackadder’s own 1969 study, Flowers and Red Table, evoke another Edinburgh artist whose work is celebrated, Anne Redpath.

— Ten Decades: Edinburgh College of Art Centenary Exhibition, City Art Centre, Edinburgh. From October 27.

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