This is the kind of review that gets written, when elitists write the reviews.
Popularity doesn't always mean bad.
But when the critics and high art curators ignore an artist (as they have with this British self-taught ex-miner) and yet that artist nonetheless becomes famous, and rich, and then strikes huge auctions prizes at Sotheby's in the world of high art - the critics (now proven wrong by their own standards) have to spout theory and ignorance to desperately attempt to prove that they are still right.
Comparing Vettriano to Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin is perhaps the stupidest comparison that I have ever read and shows breathtaking ignorance of the power of the Saatchi PR machine to "create" those artists as opposed to a poor ex-miner from Scotland rising through the maze of modern art, while being ignored by the arts establishment, to become the best-selling artist in the world and now a secondary art market name to reckon with!
And so what if his paintintgs are overtly sexual, or overtly romantic, or overtly fill-in-the-blank.... perhaps he's been painted into a corner because there's no irony in his works, but just the honest brush of a working class, smoking, womanizer, hard drinking Scot who could give a fuck as to what an art critic thinks about his paintings.
By the way... the Vettriano painting that sold at Sotheby's for £744,800 (that's over $1.5 million) was sold by the artist in 1991 for a mere £3,000!
But don't cry for Jack, as apparently, the royalties from all the posters and postcards and other crap made from the painting earn him about half a million dollars a year!
Keep them cooking Jack!
Article comments
1 - Shark
Lenny, glad to see someone else is writing about art. Also glad to see someone recognizes that the 'experts' are usually the easiest to fool, and that elitist morons have yet to recognize that, thanks to an increasingly abstract and ugly world, beauty and realism are about to make a big comeback
Shameless plug: You might enjoy my rant on Saatchi from a few months ago:
2 - Bonnie
It works like this: art is subjective - you like what you like; and, if you have a mind of your own, you like it because you like it. Cut the pretentiousness - art is as simple as that. These peeps who build a 'career' about hyping things up to make a name for themselves in order to somehow validate their place in the 'art world', when, in fact, they couldn't draw a wobbly line make me sick.
I love Vettriano's paintings. And admire him all the more as he did this off his own back, his style untainted by others as he developed this- not by a tutor, nor the critics. Trial and error and alot of hard work. The beauty of Vettriano is that you see the true grit of his talent - home grown and delicious. Raw and sexy. And no man (or woman) other than yourself can teach you that.
The truth is that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. What one person loves, another will always loathe. It's human nature. But, thank god for the variety, else we'd all be so tepid about everything and passion would be dead. But, sadly, there are always a few critical 'experts' (cough!) who are prepared to publicly and repeatedly make tin out of another man's gold. Personally, I think people like the critic Brian Sewell need to get out more as they seem to have far too much time to spit vitrolic words at Vettriano and still manage to say nothing really credible.
Long live Vettriano...
3 - Plagi Wrist
here
4 - Dave Nalle
The examples he gives of 'great' Scotts artists to compare Vettriano unfavorably to doesn't exactly inspire me. I guess Ramsay and Raeburn are as good as dozens of other adequate portrait painters of their eral, but what do they have to set them apart? As for Peploe, come again? Does poor color sense, the inability to draw figures and boring choices of subject make a good artist now?
Not that I think Vettriano is a great artist either. He's amusing and kind of light weight.
What the article you're responding to made me think was how much greater the writers of Scotland are than the artists.
Dave
5 - The MethilPuddin
Keep them cooking Jeek!
Several more potboilers are sure to follow