Jack Vettriano, O.B.E.

Solstice Gallery, Edinburgh;
Portland Gallery, London;
Private Collection 

Edinburgh, The Solstice Gallery, A Contrast of Styles, 9th - 31 August 1991, no. 46

The canvas is original. The work is in good condition, clean and ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals no sign of retouching . Held in a simple white painted wooden frame in fair condition. Under glass and unexamined out of frame.
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Bathers was exhibited at The Solstice Gallery in Edinburgh in August 1991 in the very same exhibition as two of the artist's most iconic images, The Singing Butler and Mad Dogs, dating it to the most significant period of his career. Vettriano's work is resonant of the golden age of cinema, of jazz music and the nostalgia of the 1950s. His figures are the epitome of Hollywood glamour, the Goddesses of celluloid and the sex symbols of Rock and Roll. Although he refutes suggestion that he is a connoisseur of old movies, the romantic atmosphere of his paintings is no less powerful than the best of cinema. His suave gentlemen in top hats and Panamas resemble the likes of Clark Gable or Frank Sinatra, whilst his long-legged ladies have the chic grace and sex appeal of Joan Crawford or Jane Russell, sweeping through his canvases like the most proficient of ball-room dancers. Vettriano's work has been compared to that of the American artist Edward Hopper as his paintings suggest a narrative like a snapshot taken from a film. 'Jack Vettriano has an ability to make you feel nostalgic for things you never actually experienced in the first place. He takes you to a mood and time that you know so well although you were never there' (Anthony Quinn, Lovers and Other Strangers; Paintings by Jack Vettriano, introduction by Tim Rice, pg. 6).

A parallel can also be found with Vettriano and the work of the Hungarian photographer Brasaiï who also explored the powerful sexual and romantic ambiguities of figure groups in his elegant images of Parisian life. There is also a suggestion of the work of the Nineteenth Century artist Eugene Boudin in the expansive beaches and elegant dressed, but wind-swept figures. As has been noted 'Life indoors is a peepshow played out by characters caught up in some shadowy limbo. Or out in an infinity of open space, small dramas tease and unravel. Passion, desire, threat, seduction and betrayal stalk boundaries between virtue and vice. There is an adoration of women and an indulgence of men, an acknowledgement of weakness and corruption, but neither censure or approval. The ringmaster musters his cast, cracks his whip, and ritual dances begin.' (W Gordon Smith, Fallen Angels; Paintings by Jack Vettriano, 1994, pg. 6)