His name was perfect. Jack is reassuringly British. Vettriano, a version of his mother’s maiden name, is chic and Italian. The combination was like fish and chips on fine china. It was so much better than Jack Hoggan, the name under which he sold his first paintings.
His art was sleeker, fuller and far more colourful than the life he had known, too. Mr Vettriano was born in Methil, a port town in eastern Scotland. His father and grandfather were coal miners, and he followed them for a couple of years. The only people who romanticise working down a pit, he said later, are those who have never worked down a pit: “It’s hellish.”
The world that he painted, by contrast, was full of lipstick, high heels and artfully held cigarettes, of dangerous men in sharp suits and women who had trouble keeping their clothes on. If that world ever existed anywhere, it was not in eastern Scotland at the turn of the century. But Mr Vettriano’s fantasies, which reproduced splendidly on posters, mouse mats, mugs and biscuit tins, were shared by many Britons.
“The Singing Butler”, which depicted a dancing couple in evening dress on a rainswept beach, sold at auction for £744,800 ($950,000) in 2004. That, and the crowds at his shows, got critics’ attention. Many scorned Mr Vettriano’s work, calling it soulless, simplistic and borderline pornographic—like the American artist Edward Hopper, but without the psychological complexity.
The criticism hurt. Mass popularity was not quite enough for Mr Vettriano, who included in one exhibition a rejection letter from an art school. When he finally made it into the Scottish National Portrait Gallery with “The Weight”, a self-portrait, he said he was pleased it had happened while his father was alive.
Perhaps the art world would have taken him more seriously if he had painted scenes of industrial decay or drug abuse. Then again, he reflected, if they had the opportunity wouldn’t most people choose to dance on a beach with the one they love while a butler shelters them from the rain?■
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