Jack Vettriano (1951 - 2025)

In 1996, Pavilion books commissioned W. Gordon Smith to compile an anthology, ‘Fallen Angels’, in which over 40 Vettriano images were accompanied by a selection of Scottish writing. Poets, playwrights, novelists and actors were asked for a personal response to an individual painting or poem. In the same year, Sir Terrance Conran commissioned Vettriano to create a series of paintings for Conran’s Bluebird Club in London. The seven paintings inspired by the life of Sir Malcom Campbell hung there for ten years. In 1998, Vettriano moved to London where he continued to have sell-out shows including, ‘Between Darkness and Dawn’, ‘Lovers and Other Strangers’ and ‘Affairs of the Heart’. The year 2004 was exceptional in Vettriano’s career; his best-known painting, ‘The Singing Butler’ was sold at Sotheby’s for close to £750,000; he was awarded an OBE for Services to the Visual Arts and was the subject of a Southbank show documentary, entitled ‘Jack Vettriano: The People’s Painter’; Pavilion published a book ‘Lovers and Other Strangers’ being an anthology of his work to date with text by Anthony Quinn. In 2008, Vettriano was commissioned to paint portraits of Sir Jackie Stewart and Zara Phillips, the latter was part of a charity fundraising project for Sport Relief, the experience of which was captured in a documentary broadcast on BBC One in March 2008.