VETTRIANO Jack 1954-2025

Self-taught painter raided Jack Hoggan in mining area of Methil, Fife. Known for his photo-realistic pictures, Vettriano left school at sixteen to become a mining engineer in the Fife coalfields. A girlfriend gave him a set of watercolour paints for his twenty-first birthday. From then on, he spent much of his spare hours teaching himself to paint, drawing inspiration from his local art gallery. It was not until 1989 that he plucked up the courage to send in two works to the RSA. They were hung and they sold immediately.

In 1990 he showed and sold three works at the RA Summer Exhibition in London. Since then, an unprecedented desire for his work arose, and the prices at auction outstripped many of the highly regarded modern British artists of the 20th century. He has held sell-out exhibitions around the world and in 2000, BBC Scotland produced a half-hour documentary about Vettriano. His work has also been reproduced as posters and he sold nearly one million worldwide in a few short years. He shows regularly at the Portland Gallery in London and also held a solo show at the Catto Gallery, London in 1993. He was awarded an OBE in 2004. Vettriano's work is housed in many Scottish private collections but the only known works in a public gallery can be found in Kirkcaldy Art Gallery. The Fleming Collection also holds an example. Vettriano died at his apartment in Nice, France.