Provenance

Sotheby's, Edinburgh, 1 September 2004, lot 899.

Private Collection.

Notes

As in The Singing Butler (1992), Vettriano’s most iconic painting, the present lot employs the use of figures on a beach, contrasted against a dramatic sky. The couple in this composition create a dynamic vertical tension against the horizontal axis of the beach, sea, and cloud gradations.

The beach provides an elemental backdrop to the unfolding romantic event. The couple, barefoot and in evening dress, gaze attentively at one another, while the man’s umbrella shelters them from imminent showers.

The potency of this image derives from the grand romantic gesture and is saturated with both emotion and natural splendour.

Jack Vettriano, born in Fife, Scotland, in 1951, is known for his evocative, film noir-inspired paintings. He left school at 15 to work as an apprentice engineer in the mines. A self-taught artist, he began painting as a hobby in the 1970s after receiving a set of watercolours for his twenty-first birthday. In 1988, Vettriano submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy’s Annual Exhibition and both sold on the opening day. His most famous painting, The Singing Butler (1992), sold at auction in 2004 for just under £750 000 and subsequently became one of the best selling images in the United Kingdom. Vettriano has received several accolades, including an OBE in 2003 for his contributions to the visual arts, and he has exhibited world-wide, in cities such as Edinburgh, London, Johannesburg, and New York.