Jack Vettriano continues to be ignored and snubbed by the British cultural gods, and yet the self-taught Scottish ex-miner continues to leave mouths open with his Sotheby's auction sales.

The blunt, chain-smoking, ex-miner had this to say about it all.

Regardless of how one feels about Vettriano and his paintings, I think the clear issue here is how the fact that an untrained, uneducated, coarse, somewhat vulgar man, managed to become the most popular artist in a nation where the opposite rules the academic art world.

It must really drive the Brit art establishment crazy that he continues to prosper and become more and more popular the more they ignore and bash his work!

I imagine that the first British museum which eventually acquires one of his pieces for their permanent collection will get a huge applause from the masses and venom from the other museums' curators.

Fun with art and elitist attitudes...