Jack Vettriano
Jack Vettriano was born in Scotland in 1951 and left school at sixteen to become a mining engineer. For his twenty-first birthday Vettriano received a set of watercolour paints from his girlfriend and, from then on, Jack Vettriano spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint. The local art gallery, The Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery, with its renowned collection of 19th and 20th century Scottish paintings, was particularly inspirational for Jack.
Discover more about Jack Vettriano’s early years in this interview by Arthur Smith (BBC) as he accompanies Jack on his return to his home town of Leven in Fife
In 1989 Vetttriano submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy's annual exhibition; both were accepted and sold on the first day. The following year, an equally enthusiastic reaction greeted the three paintings, which Vettriano entered for the prestigious Summer Exhibition at London's Royal Academy and Vettriano’s new life as an artist began from that point on.
Over the last twenty years, interest in and awareness of Vettriano's work has grown consistently. There have been sell-out solo exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong and New York.
2004 was an extraordinary year in Jack Vettriano's career; highlights included his painting, The Singing Butler, selling at Sotheby's for close to £750,000; Vettriano being awarded an OBE for Services to the Visual Arts; Jack featuring as a guest on ‘Desert Island Discs’ and Vettriano becoming the subject of an hour-long South Bank Show documentary, entitled “Jack Vettriano: The People’s Painter”.
In 2006, another iconic Vettriano painting, ‘Bluebird at Bonneville’ was sold at Sotheby’s for close to £500,000; this painting was one of seven originally painted for Sir Terence Conran’s ‘Bluebird Club’ in London. The images depict the life and land speed records of Malcolm Cambpell and his famous car, the Bluebird.
Further appearances on television came in 2007 when Jack Vettriano was interviewed for the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 and was invited to participate in Simon Scharma’s ‘Power of Art’ series for BBC2, for which Vettriano spoke about Van Gogh and the influence this artist’s life and work had had on him as a young man.
Jack Vettriano parted company with Portland Gallery in June 2007 and has been working on a variety of projects since then including painting a portrait of Zara Phillips for ‘Sport Relief’, the experience of which was documented in a two-part documentary broadcast on BBC1 in March 2008.
A major new Jack Vettriano book was published by Pavilion Books in March 2008 entitled ‘Jack Vettriano: Studio Life’; this is Pavilion’s third book on Vettriano but it is by far the most personal and biographical, featuring many photographs of his homes, studios and models.
Jack Vettriano divides his time now between his homes in Fife, London and Nice.
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