Jack Vettriano: Back in Kirkcaldy galleries that inspired first sketches
- Published
It's been nearly three years since I last strolled through Kirkcaldy Art Galleries with Jack Vettriano.
As a former mining engineer who left school at the age of 15 and never qualified for art school, it was here that he first studied the work of artists like Samuel Peploe and William McTaggart, replicating them at home with the watercolours he'd been given as a birthday gift.
He was looking forward to an exhibition which would show how self-taught Jack Hoggan (his name before he changed it) became one of the world's most successful artists, Jack Vettriano.
We all had to wait, as the exhibition Jack Vettriano: The Early Years was postponed twice but finally opened to the public this week
It includes many of those early works, created from memory or from postcards. Some sit alongside the original work, others have been more difficult to trace. Lacking a postcard of a favourite McTaggart painting in the collection, he instead copied a seaside scene by William Marshall.
The figures are the reverse of the original in the gallery, perhaps on the whim of the artist, or because the postcard he bought had reversed the image.
Another A Lady at the Beach - after Herbert James Gunn - wasn't in the collection at all, but a card he found in Jenner's department store.
The Beach Concert, is another work, inspired by the collection, rather than a direct copy. Painted by Jack Hoggan in the early 80s, the vintage hats, and small group of three, hint at the Vettriano beach pictures to come.
It's a brave move for an artist often criticised for copying others.
"I've said on many occasions that I've copied work. I don't think it's a bad way to learn,"he says.
"What sketching in these galleries taught me was how to get things down, and that's probably why I'm so prolific."
"But I am embarrassed about the fact that I did copy. It wasn't an easy thing to grapple with, particularly with the art establishment but why should I be embarrassed? No artist creates a masterpiece from scratch. You have to find your craft and your vision."
The moment he found that vision is contained in one painting in the exhibition, one of two he submitted to the Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibition in 1988. Both sold on the first day and Jack Vettriano realised he could become a full-time artist. It sits alongside a letter of rejection from Edinburgh College of Art, offering insight to the highs and lows of life as an artist.
The highs continued for Vettriano with shows in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong and Johannesburg. A New York show in 1999 brought a flurry of interest from UK buyers.
His work rarely fails at auction - he points out that a recent oil painting of his sold for £35,000, well above the estimate. The Singing Butler - included in this show - sold at auction in 2004 for three quarters of a million pounds, a record at the time. Reproductions of the painting remain the best selling art print in the UK.
But while Vettriano is loved, he's also loathed.
His work has been variously described as "brainless erotica", "just colouring in" "mere wallpaper" and "crass male fantasy ".
But another artist David Mach says: "If he was a fashion designer Jack would be right up there. It's all just art world snobbery."
Marti Pellow and Ian Rankin are among those at the private view at Kirkcaldy galleries.
Rankin, a friend as well as a fan of his work, says he thinks the exhibition is bold and brave.
"It's incredibly brave," he says. "It would be the equivalent of me publishing my first short stories."
Would he? "No way."
Jack Vettriano is prepared to bare all with this show. But it comes at a cost. he has spoken publicly about his struggles with his mental health, and his dependence on alcohol and drugs. He says the pandemic set him back and he found himself drinking heavily - "a bottle of vodka a day".
Now 70, he still has his demons, and still rails against the establishments which continue to shut him out. But after two postponements and nearly three years of waiting, he says he's delighted this exhibition has finally opened to the public.
"It's very humbling," he says. "When I first walked through, I got emotional. It's like seeing an old friend. Did I do that? Did I really paint that? "
Jack Vettriano: The Early Years is on at Kirkcaldy Galleries until 23 October.