When it comes to Vettriano’s work, journeyman hack Josh Spero, writing in the Guardian, once described it as as “sleazy” – before launching a personal assault on the artist himself, depicting him as untalented and uninspired. What Do the Critics Say?Ĭondemnation comes almost unanimously from those who have made a living talking about art, rather than creating it themselves. Yet he remains the target of stinging and surly criticism from establishment critics, who rail, not only against his art, but against the man himself. Forty-five years on, he’s sold out exhibitions around the world, from Hong Kong to New York, received an OBE (Order of the British Empire award), and received commissions to paint royalty. He never trained formally as an artist, preferring to trust his natural instincts in front of the canvas. It wasn’t until he reached 21 that he first picked up a brush – thanks to a girlfriend who gifted him a watercolour set for his birthday. Narcissistic Bathersīorn in Fife, Scotland, in 1951 into an impoverished mining family, Vettriano found himself working in the pits by the time he was 16 years old. His background is about as distant – figuratively speaking, as well as literally – as it could be, from the vainglorious and insular world of palaverous, champagne-breakfasting South Bank art critics. Elegy For the Dead Admiral So what is it about Jack Vettriano’s work that makes him such a polarising figure? Prints of his paintings outsell those of Monet, Dali and Van Gogh put together, yet he’s vilified by art critics and almost completely ignored by galleries.
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