"The Singing Butler" by Jack Vettriano, is probably the most famous and infamous modern painting we know. Here are some rather remarkable facts about it:
(1) The original canvas painting was sold for £ 774,000(!) in 2004, even though when Vettriano first submitted it to the Royal Academy of Art in 1992, it was rejected.
(2) The Singing Butler is the most widely reproduced painting in history, beating even Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and Monet's Sunrise. Vettriano receives £ 500,000 (!!) a year in royalties from the reproductions, which can be found in prints, bags, mugs and pillowcases etc.
(3) Vettriano's works have been sold to celebrities like Jack Nicholson, composer Sir Tim Rice and film maker Coltrane. Even the Queen of England buys his stuff.
(4) Vettriano is a self-taught artist who used to work in a coal mine in Fife Scotland, and only picked up painting in his twenties when his girlfriend gave him a box of watercolours as a gift.
(5)In Oct 2005, it was 'discovered' that figures in some of Vettriano's paintings, including The Singing Butler, were based on figures from an artists' reference manual, The Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual.
Reading about Vettriano and his works always brings up many questions relating to "What is good Art?". The debate surrounding this artist still rages while he collects his millions. During my recent Vietnam trip, I was thinking a bit about that question again in a somewhat similar context. If you have visited the Old Quarters district of Hanoi City, you would have noticed many "art" shops (not the galleries) selling reproductions of local and international paintings. There is often a row of artists, each perched on a short stool in the shop, copying famous paintings in oil from little postcards or art reference books. Dali, Botero, Renoir, you name it, they copy it. Now, they are of course doing that for a living, and are not really claiming to be artists in any way. We do know however that many of the popular artists in Vietnam started out their art career this way. Some of them have done very well indeed, attracting an international clientele (including the likes of Bill Clinton) who are taken by the colourful, fusion style that now characterizes much of Vietnamese artwork. Critics of the local art however, find it overly-stylized, commercially driven and lacking in creativity. Some have even said that they are essentially copyists of the original successful Vietnamese artists like Duc and Bui .
It was quite amusing to see "The Singing Butler" being copied in the artshops in Hanoi. A copy of a copy! hahaha... Supporters of Vettriano would say, "Get a life, stop being an art snob!". They will point to the fact that Vettriano is able to arrange and compose his pictures in such a way (even though he may not have originally come up with the figurine drawings) that evokes mystery, romance and strong emotional response from his viewers - that ability justifies him to be recognized as a great artist. Detractors on the other hand would reject it as plagiarism, artistic dishonesty and call him not an artist, but a mere "colour-filler".
I know which "camp" I belong to, but I think checking one's response to a piece like "The Singing Butler" is useful to discover one's own attitude towards art - what is it that we admire and respond to, and the way we ourselves will go about creating art.
