ART > A portrait of the millionaire as an artist

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK: Critics and snooty galleries turn their noses up at Jack Vettriano, and, while his popular paintings earn him a fortune, he does rankle at the snobbery of it all, finds Elizabeth Grice

Any anthology of contemporary insults would surely contain those lobbed at the self-taught painter Jack Vettriano. He has been called the Jeffrey Archer of the art world. A purveyor of "dim erotica". A dabbler in "badly conceived soft porn". A painter who "just colours in". Most cutting of all, the critic Duncan Macmillan delivered the patronising one-liner: "He's welcome to paint so long as nobody takes him seriously."

Launching another sell-out exhibition of his new work in London earlier this month, Vettriano, one of the few artist millionaires in existence, can afford to thumb his nose at all this.

His paintings fetch between £300,000 and £500,000 at auction and up to £130,000 from a gallery. His most popular piece of schmaltz, The Singing Butler, made £744,800 at Sotheby's two years ago. Three million posters of his dancers in evening dress on a wet beach are brightening the lives of what the art establishment regards as the undiscerning masses.

Read on.