Commemorating one year since the passing of celebrated Scottish painter Jack Vettriano, National Galleries of Scotland has announced it is to showcase two works by the artist

Lead image credit: Paul Watt

Celebrating the life and prolific career of Vettriano, the artist’s estate will loan two self-portraits ‘Portrait of the Artist’ and ‘Homage to Fontana?’ over a six-year period. ‘Portrait of the Artist’ is now on display at National Galleries Scotland: Portrait. Free to visit, the painting will stay on display until early 2029 when it will then be swapped with ‘Homage to Fontana?’

A self-taught painter, Vettriano was loved at home in Scotland and internationally for his evocative and timeless works that continue to captivate and inspire. His career made a huge contribution to the Scottish arts and culture scene and even broke records in the UK and Scotland. In 2004 his painting The Singing Butler achieved a record price for a Scottish painting sold at auction and went on to become the best-selling art print in the UK. The work even inspired Banksy, whose reimagining of the painting sold in March 2025 for £4.3million. Vettriano is internationally recognised, with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Tim Rice among collectors of his work.

‘Portrait of the Artist’, painted in 1993, is an early self-portrait by Vettriano and was painted a year after The Singing Butler. It depicts the artist taking a break from painting at his Edinburgh flat where he had a studio. A dramatic depiction of light and shade sets the scene for a moment of contemplation. The artist’s paint-splattered clothes emphasise the task at hand.

Portrait of the Artist, Jack Vettriano, © Estate of The Artist and reproduced courtesy of the estate of the Artist

The cinematic ‘Homage to Fontana?’ was painted later in 1999. The title and slashes in the painted canvas reference the Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) whose slashed canvases of the 1950s and 60s blurred the distinction between two and three dimensions to create ‘an infinite dimension’. Vettriano invites us to follow his act of contemplation in relation to what lies beneath the surface and beyond. The painting returned to Edinburgh in July 2025 after its inclusion in a Vettriano exhibition at the Palazzo Pallavicini in Bologna and is the largest of three versions of this composition.

Born Jack Hoggan, Vettriano grew up in the coastal mining village of Methil in Fife. After leaving school at 15, he followed his father down the mine, working as an apprentice engineer. He later moved on to white-collar jobs in management services, taking up painting as a hobby in the 1970s when a girlfriend bought him a set of watercolours for his birthday. From then on, Vettriano spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint. He learned by copying Old Masters, Impressionists, Surrealists and a plethora of Scottish artists, taking inspiration from studying the collection at Kirkcaldy Galleries. It was his experience living near Leven Beach which prompted him to make the decision: ‘I’m going to set some paintings on beaches.’  

Homage to Fontana? Jack Vettriano, © Estate of The Artist and reproduced courtesy of the estate of the Artist

A figurative painter, Vettriano described his work as “more or less autobiographical.” He worked from photographs of scenes he staged with models in his studio. His paintings evoke the nostalgia of the 1940s and 50s and were often set, in the artist’s own words, in ‘sombre and sordid interiors’. Vettriano’s dramatic use of light and shade is a distinctive element of his work and heightens the stories of love, sex and betrayal in his paintings.