Jacques Vetriano, “Singing Butler” painter, dies at age 73

Jacques Vettetoriano, the Scottish painter best known for “The Singing Butler,” who overcomes critical politics to become one of Europe's best-selling painters, has passed away. He was 73 years old.

His death was announced in a statement on his website. He did not cite or say when or where he died.

Mr. Vettetoriano, The eroticism-loving neo-realist painter often portrayed ordinary people, particularly attractive women, in his intimate situations with Scotland. Fans of his work included actor Jack Nicholson and songwriter Tim Rice, but critics saved his work as lowblow and sometimes Chaubinism.

“The Singing Butler” was initially sold for just a small portion of its ultimate value.

“The Singing Butler” was one of the first paintings that Vettriano sold after becoming a professional artist. In 1992 it was sold for £3,000 on his account, or about $1,270 at the exchange rate today. “A thousand people went to the auction house, 1,000 people went to the tax officers and I left £1,000,” he told the Sunday Post in 2021.

This was early in Mr. Betriano's career, but he was already in his 40s. He had sold several paintings by then.

“The Singing Butler” was sold again at an auction in 2004, this time for around £750,000, making it the most valuable piece of art to emerge from Scotland at the time.

It depicts a couple dancing under a cloudy sky on what looks like a beach. Man and woman standing nearby and holding umbrellas. All four of the paintings keep their heads away from the viewers. Painting evokes a sense of nostalgia that often permeates Bethriano's paintings.

“I think it's just an escapism,” Vettotriano told CBS Sunday Morning in 2004. “It's what we all want to be at some point in our lives. And when you sit on a Tuesday afternoon like cold, wet, wet, and damp, you think it has it on your wall, I think it's uplifting. It enriches your spirit.”

The man on the right is a butler, and according to Vettetoriano, he definitely sings. But what?

“Shoot me to the moon and let me sing among those stars, a Sinatra classic,” Vetttoriano told Scotland on Sunday.

Based primarily on “The Singing Butler,” Vettetoriano will become one of the most popular artists in the world. Reproductions of his paintings, appearing in everyday items such as mugs and mouse pads from decades ago, in millions.

Even if his fame skyrocketed, critics largely rejected him.

Mr. Vettetoriano was by no means a critical beloved or a favorite of the art facility. This was a painful point for Bettoriano, who once exhibited a 1989 rejection letter from the Edinburgh College of Art as part of the 2022 exhibition.

Duncan Macmillan, an art historian who wrote a book covering Scottish art for over 500 years, barely mentioned Mr. Bethriano in his high reputation.

Critic Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian in 2011, describing Vettetoriano's painting as “emotionally trivial and technically monotonous.” The most famous museums in England in particular do not usually show his paintings.

“I don't like artists that are as popular as me because they take away some of their authority,” Vettriano once told Radio Times. “If they want to ignore me, let me do them.”

“The Singing Butler” was reconsidered by Banksy.

British Street artist Banksy recreated Vettetoriano's most famous paintings, but replaced the women with umbrellas. It was first exhibited in 2005 under the title “Crude Oil (Vettriano)” and was eventually purchased by Mark Hoppus, founder of Pop-Punk Bank Blink-182.

The Banksy version will be auctioned on Tuesday, where it expects to get a minimum of £3 million, or about $3.8 million.

Vettriano had no intention of becoming an artist.

Born in Eastern Fife County, Scotland on November 17, 1951, Jack Hogan left school around the age of 16 and followed his father's footsteps as a miner.

When he turned 21, his girlfriend gave him a set of watercolors, and he spent his paintings in his 20s and 30s, copying works by famous artists to hone his techniques often under the name Hogan. He eventually adopted the version of Vettrino, the name of his mother's maiden, as his last name.

“I did that to distinguish between what I can see my style being developed,” Vettriano told courier and advertisers in 2022. “I didn't want to be contaminated by copies.”

His big break will come in the late 1980s more than 20 years later. Around the time he was rejected by the Edinburgh College of Art, Vettetriano submitted two paintings to the Royal Academy of Scotland's annual exhibition. They sold within minutes. They were his first professional sales, what Mr. Vettriano later said “marked my arrival.”

“You put some of the Impressionists, some of the old Masters, Cezanne, Degas and some of the Scottish artists and mix them up,” Vetttoriano told advertisers in courier delivery, “It's me who'll come out.”