Exhibited

Everard Read, Johannesburg, Jack Vettriano Retrospective Exhibition, 29 July to 14 August 2004.

Notes

In the present lot, the artist introduces us to three toffs at the races caught contemplating their race cards. Their quiet solemnity, heightened by their hand gestures, communicates their intense concentration.

Vettriano’s interest in the races is one of his most popular themes. It is through this tightly cropped composition, together with the use of high-contrasting, saturated colour, that the artist captures this cinematic moment.

Dressed in top hats and tails, the men evoke high society and wealth. This painting conveys a nostalgic glimpse of a moment in an imagined past.

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.