Signed lower right, oil on canvas board

(50cm x 38cm (19.5in x 15in))

Provenance: The Atholl Gallery, Dunkeld, 1990

Note: From the beginning, Jack Vettriano?s paintings have evoked a distinctive and fully-realised world, and his work is therefore instantly recognisable. Dimly-lit Deco-style bars, bedrooms and restaurants are haunted by figures clad in elegant dresses and well-cut suits reminiscent of the 1930s. ?It?s a perfect world I would like to have lived in? Vettriano has commented. Yet his paintings go beyond nostalgic odes to a bygone era; they are also expressions of the artist?s worldview, so replete with longing and loneliness that they often read like stills from a film noir. Much of Vettriano?s work explores the complex dynamics at play throughout the rituals of courtship and seduction, exemplified by ?Busted Flush?. It is arguably his talent as a narrative painter that makes the vignettes he conjures so compelling. The irresistibility of Vettriano?s journey from Scottish coalminer to globally-successful artist is undeniable. In 2014 his biggest-ever retrospective at Kelvingrove broke the museum?s attendance record, and the appetite for Vettriano remains strong as ever. He famously often paints himself into his own compositions, either immersed within his glamorous nocturnes or in his studio amidst his canvases, as with the striking 2001 example Artist in Studio (Lot 170). Vettriano has expressed that ?I don?t really want two people there. Because I am self-taught and not used to working with other people, I prefer just me and the model to be in the picture. Any more than that and I just feel a sort of tension.?