Jack Vettriano self-portrait to go on show on first anniversary of his death

A self-portrait by Jack Vettriano is to go on show in Edinburgh on the first anniversary of his death.

The 73-year-old self-taught painter was found dead in his flat in Nice, France, on March 1 last year.

The Portrait Of The Artist will go on show at National Galleries Scotland: Portrait on Sunday March 1 this year.

It will be the first of two self-portraits being loaned by the artist’s estate which will go on show consecutively over a six-year period.

Portrait Of The Artist will be on display until early 2029 and will then be swapped with the other work, titled Homage To Fontana?.

Imogen Gibbon, head of portraiture and photography and chief curator at National Galleries Scotland, said: “We’re thrilled to be welcoming visitors to the Portrait gallery to come and see Portrait Of The Artist by Jack Vettriano.

“It feels particularly significant that we are able to showcase a self-portrait to celebrate Vettriano’s contribution to Scottish culture on the anniversary of his death.

“This portrait and the subsequent work Homage To Fontana? will take their place on loan in The Modern Portrait display amongst the many other contemporary portraits of Scots who have made an impact at home in Scotland and internationally.

“National Galleries of Scotland extend our thanks to the artist’s estate, who came to us with this idea and supported us to make it happen.”

Portrait Of The Artist, created in 1993, is an early self-portrait by Vettriano and was painted a year after one of his best known works, The Singing Butler.

Carolyn Osborne, director of Jack Vettriano Publishing Limited, said: “Jack was known as the People’s Painter and it’s entirely fitting that the public will be able to see one of his paintings in such a beautiful setting within a mile of where it was painted.”

Vettriano, from Fife, left school at 15 to become a mining engineer but took up painting after a girlfriend gave him a box of watercolours for his 21st birthday.

He learned by copying the Old Masters, Impressionists and Scottish artists and drew inspiration from works he saw in Kirkcaldy Galleries.

In 1988 he submitted two works to the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition, which both sold within the first day, and he went on to achieve international success in the 1990s.

Homage To Fontana? was painted in 1999.

Experts said 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”.