LONDON (Reuters) – His public relations staff said on Monday that he was known as the “Singing Housekeeper” by self-taught Scottish painter Jack Vettriano, who died at the age of 73.
Vettriano was found dead in an apartment in the city of Nice in southern France on Saturday. Local media said there was no suspicious situation after his death.
“He is not only an extraordinary artist, but a deep and humble man, and he is relentlessly grateful for his support and admiration for those who love his work,” Jack Freud, a public relations worker at Vettriano, said in a statement.
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“His paintings – which capture moments of conspiracy, romance and nostalgia – touch the hearts of many people in the world, through which his legacy will live.”
Vettriano was born in a poor coal mine family in the seaside town of Methil, Scotland. He began painting after his girlfriend gave him a box of watercolors.
His 1992 work The Singing Butler depicts a stylish couple dancing on a storm-swept beach, with their butler and maid holding umbrellas nearby and taking 744,800 pounds ($944,4000) at the 2004 auction, a Scottish record.
Street artist Banksy’s reinterpretation of street artist Banksy’s work is expected to be sold at a London auction later this week.
Mining root
Although Vettriano’s work has won many fans and famous buyers, he has never been fully embraced by art institutions, and some critics consider his work too sketchy.
He believes that critics have a “pretty arrogant stance” towards him and told Reuters in 2004: “Jealousy, jealousy, the fact that they have nothing to do with training me, and I’m very popular. All of these things exacerbate their attitude.”
He was born in 1951 as Jack Hoggan, who left school at the age of 15 and followed his father into the coal mine.
Realizing that this wasn’t the life he wanted, he ended up teaching himself to painting, inspired by the work of the local Kirkdy Art Gallery, and adopted his mother’s maiden name.
He rested in 1988, when he submitted the canvas twice to the Royal Scottish Academy annual show, and sold it on the first day. His prints later began earning him more than 500,000 pounds of royalties.
Vettriano’s later work became more public, reflecting his own hedonistic lifestyle, which included drug and alcohol problems.
He said in 2004: “I am a melancholy romantic. My paintings are a worship of women. They are also partly biography. Sex is crucial to our lives.”
“I draw these people because I’m attracted to them. They are sexually motivated and we all know where that is. These are not happy people.”
($1 = 0.7886 lbs)
(Written by Sam Tabahriti and edited by Sachin Ravikumar)
