Exhibitions - Previous Exhibitions - Jack Vettriano 16.06.07 - 08.07.07 View gallery Don't miss out on your own "Private Dancer" at The Gascoigne gallery in June!! Jack Vettriano's Fallen Angels 16.06.07 - 08.07.07 Limited Edtion Signed SilkScreens The people's artist is coming to Harrogate and will be exhibiting at the award winning Gascoigne gallery from June 16th. Born Jack Hoggan in Fife Scotland in 1951, Vettriano left school at 16 and became an apprentice mining engineer. Taking up painting as a hobby in his twenties, Jack found his artistic talent and by 1988 was displaying his work at the Royal Scottish Academy. In 2003, Jack Vettriano was awarded an Honorary doctorate from St Andrew's university and an OBE for Services to the Visual Arts. Despite his work being generally dismissed by art critics as being vulgar and devoid of imagination, Vettriano has sold more than 3 million poster reproductions around the world and his is one of the most commercially successful living artists. He outsells Dali, Monet and Van Gogh and his images of beaches, butlers and lovers have adorned everything from posters to mugs and umbrellas. In October 2005, it was "discovered" that the figures in some of Vettriano's paintings were based on an artist's reference manual, The Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual. However despite being charged through the media of plagourism, Vettriano's image was not tarnished. He had never claimed to be anything other than self-taught and freely admits that during his early years he didn't have the financial resources available with which to hire actual models. It should be unsurprising that a self-taught artist who didn't have models at his disposal would use a teaching manual, especially as his applications to The Edinburgh University and The Edinburgh College of Art were rejected without explaination. Vettriano commented "After, I contacted the colleges and said 'I'm a mature student and this means a lot to me, it's a whole life change going into full time study', and I wanted them to say to me 'this is where your portfolio failed and here's where you can do better'. They said they don't enter into any discussion with anybody and I just thought I'll do it my own way." "In retrospect that was a blessing in disguise because I think that unfortunately. but understandably, a lecturer is trying to turn a student into his own image - that's part of why he's a lecturer, because he wants to impart his knowledge into you. If I'd gone I just wouldn't be where I am now."
Vettriano has forged a unique place for himself amongst Britain's artists. His choice of subject matter - dark, highly charges paintings of vampish young women in various seductive poses with older men. Each of his canvases is carefully composed and captures a shadowy underworld redolent of 1940's Hollywood movies, replete with men in suits, braces and hats and glamourously seductive women holding them under their spells with their silk stockings and short dresses in often opulent interiors. His settings appear mysterious and timeless, similar in a way to the melancholy of Edward Hopper, but human characters dominate all his works, interacting with a meancing sensuality and tension. It is this heady atmosphere which has attracted many of Vettriano's high-profile admirers and collectors. Jack Nicholson, Sir Terance Conran, Robbie Coltrane are amongst those well known names. Sir Tim Rice, one of Vettriano's collectors has been quoted as describing Vettriano's work as "..... a cool sharp world of edgy romance and tension..... the men are tougher than those you know, the women unavailable......" Although Vettriano has been accused of pandering to popular chauvinistic tastes, his painting are also attractive to women collectors and Vettriano himself sees the women in his paintings as "stronger than the men depicted". Undoubtedly a painter of such idiosyncratic style and courage to paint the dark fantasies from the inmost recesses of his imagination has led to a certain cynicism, but this has come mainly from the artistic establishment who are perhaps envious not only of his success but also of the manner in which he has achieved it - without their help or intervention. Inspired by the film noir, giving a voyeurs snapshot that tells only part of the story leaving the gaps to the viewers imagination, Jack Vettriano's Fallen Angels are sensual, rich in colour, full of light and shade and very definately interesting.
Vettriano is shunned from the conservative art world, critics have described his work as 'soft porn', 'flat', 'souless' and 'no more than colouring in'. They have dismissed that artist with comments such as "he's welcome to paint, as long as nobody takes him seriously." The obvious dislike and contempt for the artist promoted Bob Bee, who has directed and produced Jack Vettriano: The People's Painter for Melvyn Bragg's South Bank Show, which was broadcast on 21 March 2004, to dig a little deeper into the divided opinion and said: "We wanted to ask Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, the criteria by which acquisitions are selected and whether he would consider buying a Vettriano. We were told he was busy curating his next exhibition." "I can see why Nicholas Serota hasn't got anything to say because he has his own agenda. But if there was a Jack Vettriano show at the Tate, I can only think that it would be very well attended, and by a lot of people who don't normally visit the Tate, which would surely be a good thing."
The Tate countered this with a statement "Tate collects British art of national importance, and can't purchase works by every British artist. The curators judge which artists and works are of national importance and we don't discuss artists not included in the collection."
Hewlett, the owner of the Portland Gallery in London, which exhibits Jack Vettraino's work, said: "Art which is accessible to the masses is often regarded as not worthy of inclusion when the people choosing for galleries prefer old masters or cutting-edge contemporary. Should a public gallery give the public what they want or what the directors want to give them?"
Vettriano's work is not cutting-edge, it is comfortable, saucy, a reminder of times gone by, but, it is what the British public like. The artist himself says: " I have days when I couldn't care less, and other days when I wonder why the gulf exists. There's a snob association: when something's too popular it's regarded as a bit trashy. But, I would rather my paintings sold to ordinary people, rather than being stacked in a store house at the National Gallery." |
 |
| Private Dancer - Jack Vettriano | |
