Self-taught Scottish painter Jack Vettriano has been found dead at his apartment in Nice, in the south of France, his publicist said.
The 73-year-old, who was born Jack Hoggan on 17 November 1951, in Methil, Fife, was found on Saturday. It is understood there are no suspicious circumstances around his death.
His publicist said in a statement: “Jack Vettriano’s passing marks the end of an era for contemporary Scottish art. His evocative and timeless works will continue to captivate and inspire future generations.”
The artist grew up in poverty, sharing a bed with his brother. He worked to earn a living from the age of 10, with his miner father taking half his wage. He left school at 15 to become a mining engineer.
In the 1970s, a girlfriend brought him a set of watercolours for his 21st birthday, at which point Vettriano immersed himself in art.
He taught himself by studying art at the Kirkcaldy Galleries.
His early paintings were imitations of the work of other artists, particularly the Impressionists; his first was a copy of Claude Monet’s Poppy Fields.
He left his wife and quit his job in educational research at age 36, but had his artwork rejected after he applied to study fine art at the University of Edinburgh.
His breakthrough came in 1998 when he submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual show and both sold on the first day, inspiring him to become a full-time artist.
Despite undeniable commercial and mainstream success, Vettriano never enjoyed a good relationship with art critics, with some describing his work as “brainless” and “dim erotica”.
But the artist was undeterred. “They don’t like an artist who is as popular as me because it takes away part of their authority,” he once said. “If they want to ignore me, let them.
“I have what I want and that is the support of the public and that means far more to me than the approval of a bunch of well-educated art buffs.”
Vettriano’s celebrity collectors include Sir Alex Ferguson, Jack Nicholson, Terence Conran and Tim Rice, who have paid anything from £40,000 for a small work to hundreds of thousands for a major canvas at auction.
He became not only a household name but a fixture, thanks mainly to The Singing Butler, his painting of an elegant couple waltzing on a blustery beach as two windswept servants look on.
Having been rejected by the Royal Scottish Academy for its summer exhibition, the canvas was first sold privately in 1991 for £3,000. In 2004, it sold at auction for £744,800, breaking the record for any Scottish painting, and indeed for any painting by any artist ever sold in Scotland.
By that time it had already sold over a million posters and brought in royalties of half a million pounds a year, or enough cash for Vettriano to buy a horse and name it The Singing Butler. In a 2017 poll, the painting was voted the third most popular in the UK.
He would go on to hold exhibitions across the world, including in London, Hong Kong and New York, with a 2013 retrospective held at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow.
In later years, he divided his time between Kirkcaldy and Nice.
In 2010, he told The Independent: “I live in a world of heartbreak ... I just seem to be more creative when I’m in some kind of emotional distress,” adding, “It’s been four years of soul-searching – nicotine, alcohol, anti-depressants, temazepam.”
In 2012, he was convicted of drink-driving and possession of amphetamine. He was banned from driving for 18 months and fined £800.
His influence on modern artists remains. Banksy’s work Crude Oil (Vettriano) reimagined The Singing Butler, already one of the most celebrated pictures in Britain, in his landmark 2005 exhibition Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Vermin.
Scotland’s first minister John Swinney was among those to pay tribute to the artist for making a “unique and evocative contribution to artistic life in Scotland in such compelling style”.
He added: “Jack was also a philanthropist for a number of important causes and I know his loss will be sorely felt by many across Scotland and the world.”
