Jack Vettiiano

Born in 1951, Jack Vettriano has emerged from the unlikely background of an early working life in the Scottish coal-fields to become Britain's best known contemporary artist; he is entirely self taught. He has only been painting full time since 1988 after his work first came to public prominence at the Royal Scottish Academy open exhibition. Since then there have been sell out exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and New York.

In less than fifteen years, the average price of his paintings has risen from a few hundred to tens of thousands of pounds. The demand for Vettriano's work is reflected in the successive record breaking prices that his paintings have achieved at auction in the last few years, most notably with the sale of The Singing Butler, the artist's most iconic image, which sold for £740,000 ($1,375,000 USD) at Sotheby's in April 2004 a record breaking price for a painting by a Scottish artist.