Sticks & stones

Let’s start with something visual since we’re dealing with an artist. In this picture, Jack Vettriano is a little boy, just ten years old. He’s in Methil, the Fife town where he grew up. He’s standing in the thriving port, where the merchant ships trade in coal and steel, but it’s not just the ships providing the colour. In every busy port there are the street women who entertain the sailors, and there they are, hanging around Methil docks, looking for business.

Young Jack, the onlooker, sees them with their sexy clothes and their ruby lipstick and it triggers something inside him. "I remember seeing them at ten years old and knowing I was touched by them. As young as that, I was looking and thinking... you know…" He breaks off, leaving you wondering exactly what he was thinking.

"Touched" suggests empathy. But is he just talking about desire? "No," he says hesitantly. "There was something awakening inside me at this overtness, and that’s why women in my paintings are overt. To this day I like sexual overtness."

Jack Vettriano worked as an engineer in the mines before famously teaching himself to paint with a box of watercolours given to him by a girlfriend for his 21st birthday. Women have always shaped Vettriano. At first, he copied other artists. He wore a smock and used a palette. The only thing missing was the beret. There he was, in a bedroom in a council house, acting, he says, "like bloody Matisse". But then he stopped copying and started painting. One of his early works, The Singing Butler, recently broke the record for the most expensive painting ever sold in Scotland, when it fetched £745,000 at auction.

Inspiration - that’s the thing. He has one piece of advice for artists when he gives talks. "If you want to find your subject-matter, just dig deep within yourself and you’ll find it."

Vettriano looked deep and came up with a clear answer. "I thought: the only thing that really interests me is women. And also a sort of melancholic, rose-coloured look at the past."

The women in his paintings are almost always beautiful - glamorous, sophisticated and, above all, sexy. A Vettriano woman wears stockings and suspenders, never tights. She wears high heels and an invitation to bed in her haughty eyes. She is Vettriano’s inspiration, his life, really. It just took him a while to realise it. "I was 40 before I was recognised. I had 25 years of sexual misbehaviour under my belt, so of course I had subject-matter. It was all there in front of me and I didn’t see it. But then, when I did, it just poured out of me. It still does."

WE MEET in London, in Terence Conran’s Bluebird club on the King’s Road, for which Vettriano was commissioned to do some paintings. I confess to a pang of disappointment when the venue was switched from Vettriano’s flat. Seeing where a person lives, where they work, is more intimate and revealing. I suspect that’s why he changed his mind.

He is nervous, he says, before the tape is switched on. Later, I suspect his nervousness stemmed from knowing himself too well. Vettriano’s business is sex. It drives his paintings. You can’t interview him without talking about it, and Vettriano knows he’ll answer the questions honestly. And he also knows that when he does, it’s easy to make him sound strange. Which is not to say that he isn’t a little strange. Would he be an artist if he wasn’t unusual? It’s the visions in his head that make the canvas, not the visions of the ordinary man.

One of Vettriano’s friends tells me that Jack thinks about sex much more than most people, and just assumes that everyone else thinks about it as much as he does. The artist is fond of saying things like "Show me a man who hasn’t wanted a prostitute and I’ll show you a liar." "I’ll show you lots," says his friend, with an it’s-just-Jack shrug.

But Vettriano is not that strange. Women can sniff male predators at 100 paces, but I feel comfortable with him. He is quietly spoken and attentive, and very, very intense. Flirtatious? Yes. Threatening? No. He is baffled that men and women can overcome their differences to actually form lasting relationships, but his liking for women seems more than sexual. "I think I probably understand women. Because I am involved in a creative world, my mind operates differently from a motor mechanic’s or a football player’s. I’ve talked to women for longer and in a deeper way than most men would, because I am very curious to know what goes on in a woman’s mind."

Feminists have criticised his work. It’s surprising in some ways, because in Vettriano’s world, women have the power. His paintings are relationship dramas, sometimes set in a bedroom, sometimes in a smoky bar or lap-dancing club. A Vettriano woman is beautiful but cold, and her power, sharp as her stiletto heels, lies in the effect she has on men. A Vettriano man is handsome and strong-jawed, but somehow slightly weakened, because his desire for the woman is always greater than the woman’s desire for him.

But how does Vettriano see the power balance? "I see the women having more power in my paintings. I am astonished that anyone would think I am a misogynist. I like strong women; I have never been attracted to servile women. To me, men aren’t half as sophisticated as women. What men have over women is basically earning-power. But they don’t have the wit. They don’t have the wisdom. They just don’t come close to women in the level of their conversation."

Nor, apparently, in the sophistication of their sexual fantasies. "When you talk to women, their fantasies are way beyond men’s - way, way beyond them. They can transport themselves into another environment. Men think about the woman who works down in Boots."

Vettriano breaks off repeatedly in conversation. No, he’ll say, don’t quote that. Change that word. Treat me gently. What I’m really trying to say is… It suggests he feels misunderstood.

"Show me a person who isn’t drawn to the wicked man, or to the whore, and I’ll show you a person who is being slightly dishonest with us," he says and then stops. Doubt begins to dance in his eyes. Something in my expression has made him lose confidence. "Now at this point I want you to say to me that you understand what I have just said," he insists. "You yourself."

I hesitate. If I say I don’t, the interview is effectively over. Vettriano needs empathy. And I do believe that people are attracted by danger, though sometimes it’s because they think they can tame it. But I’m just not sure you can make blanket statements about people’s sexual switches. Vettriano accepts my fudged answer, but looks uneasy. Then he says, "We are all driven in a very strong, sexual way. For all that we have put man on the moon, we are still wired as we were a million years ago. All women have to do is put on a slightly higher pair of heels and men will be just… you know…"

Men will? Or Jack Vettriano will? "I think men in general. Men are just beasts. And if you dress in a way that touches the beast, you will tame the beast."

Perhaps Vettriano is just unusually honest. "I’ll tell you something strange," he says. "You sit men around a table and ask them to tell you what their ideal woman is and they’ll say, ‘I want someone sensitive, intelligent, well educated. A woman who is interested in a bit of politics.’" He pauses. "My arse," he says.

The irony is that Vettriano’s painted relationships seem to stand in the way of his real ones. He has one failed marriage behind him, though he is now in a long-term relationship. "Three weeks," he jokes. "No, don’t say that," he adds in alarm, as if he thinks the world has had a sense-of-humour bypass. And when it comes to Vettriano, perhaps it has. But has his work perhaps been a barrier to personal happiness? "At certain times, you can appear ice-cold," he admits. "You might be halfway through your painting and you will not be disturbed. Not for anything will you be disturbed. And that often comes across as bad-mannered or cruel, but I like to think that people who know me know it’s not that at all. It’s a drive that means all other things must wait until it’s ready and then I’m all yours."

He is melancholic by nature. But then he fears being anything else. "I’d be the first to admit I’m scared of domesticity. I have been in it and went into semi-retirement mentally. I think you’re petrified to let yourself drift into a situation where you’re thinking of thatched cottages and dogs. All poets and painters thrive on tragedy. That’s what they need. Creative people thrive not so much on misery, but on having an emotional edge. I feel I do my best work when I am on some sort of emotional edge."

Or maybe he just thinks he does. Any artist or writer needs a couple of files marked ‘Trauma’ in their experience filing cabinet. It may even be a positive advantage to have a certain emotional flakiness. But isn’t it enough to know what is over the edge? Do you have to live on it constantly? "I could be kidding myself," he admits. "I could be making a huge mistake. I could be wasting my life. I think it’s a dilemma for anyone who is creative."

He considers himself romantic in the broadest sense. But he’s also a pragmatist. "I just know that you can’t live with someone seven days a week and still have magic exist for a long time. Can’t be done." Perhaps that’s another way of saying he finds fidelity difficult. "I think the honest answer, the only answer I am going to give, is that there have been times where I have found it difficult."

Later, he is more forthcoming. "I have always been amazed at how people will kick up such a fuss about a partner being unfaithful. I’m not talking about continuously, I’m talking about a one-off."

He’s not a jealous man? "No, I’m jealous all right. I’m jealous. But I’m not somebody who goes doolally over somebody’s weakness. We are all weak. Late at night after a few drinks, we can be terribly weak, and I’m terribly forgiving because I know how weak we can be. Perhaps I am forgiving because I need to be forgiven. But I don’t think it’s that. I think my vision is wider."

Men, he says, are very basic. "Don’t get me wrong, we have a brain. But I’m talking about basic instincts. I’m talking about a man who knows he should go home after the office but something draws him to the wine bar. It might be the wine. But it might also be that he just wants to go and see what’s around."

If his partner was unfaithful, wouldn’t he mind? "It’s not that I wouldn’t mind; it’s that there’s too much emphasis put on it. I mean, men… it can last all of two minutes in a public place." Vettriano slumps and puts his head into his hands. "Oh, Catherine," he says. "I’m getting into awful bother here."

"ARE you going to ask about The Singing Butler?" asks Vettriano. "I’ve never spoken about the sale."

The painting of the couple in evening dress, dancing on a beach while a butler holds an umbrella over them, is Vettriano’s most famous image. It has been reproduced endlessly since it was bought for £3,000 by a private collector in 1991. In fact, 12 million copies of the image have been sold in card and poster form. The public loves him. The critics don’t. Vettriano has an artist’s insecurity. "It’s the same with any creative person - their need for approval is greater than anybody else’s."

Even selling a painting for three-quarters of a million didn’t help. "The next day I went underground. I didn’t speak to anybody. What the hell do you think I was feeling? I was a mixture of being totally bemused and slightly worried about the future. The painting sells for close to a million, and I don’t get any of it. It’s not like I can say, ‘F**k the art world, I’m off to the Bahamas.’ It just means more people saying, ‘Well, let’s take a little look at Vettriano then.’"

He is caught in the success trap, constantly driven to prove he is not a flash-in-the-pan. Money doesn’t come into it. "I don’t associate the price a person pays for a painting with the quality of the painting. I am not saying, and never will say, that The Singing Butler is a great painting. It’s not. It’s just desirable."

Part of him feels proud of the painting. "Astonishingly proud. And part of me feels it is a poisoned chalice."

Is he concerned that he will never paint a better picture? "No, because I am technically a better painter now. I would do a better job of The Singing Butler now."

How could he improve it? "It would just be better - better finished. That’s what I feel when I look at my early work. It has got a certain charm, but it’s limited because I was limited. You haven’t quite picked up how to get a certain look, a certain colour, a certain light. The more you paint, the better you become. But my dealer says to me, ‘Jack, they were of their day.’ And it’s true. They were."

It’s true of everything, I say. You look back at certain clothes you wore and you ask yourself, "What the hell was I thinking of?" He laughs. "So you have the flying suit too?" Oh, I had all manner of dark secrets. The words are out before I realise my mistake. They hang there in the air. Vettriano looks at me with cool humour. "Well," he says, "we’ll come to that later."

I like Vettriano’s humour. When talking about other artists, he says he likes Alison Watt and early Stephen Conroy, and then waves his hand. "Put a few names in there for me, Catherine," he says. "Make me look smart." Nice irony. He is smart and he knows it, and he knows I know it. But to hear the critics you would think he was some dimwit, drawing with charcoal on the wall of a Fife mine. He bothered about qualifications only as an adult, and now, at 52, educational respect matters; it is important to him that he has been invited to address both Oxford and Cambridge Unions.

How much does he care when critics savage him? "I don’t mind anybody saying, ‘I don’t like his subject-matter, the way he paints, the surface he leaves on his canvases.’ But what I don’t like is people like Sandy Moffat [Glasgow School of Art’s head of painting] saying, ‘He just colours in.’ Or Duncan Macmillan [critic and author] saying, ‘He’s welcome to paint so long as nobody takes him seriously.’ What you are trying to do is extinguish my star, my light. You’re trying to kill my spirit. And I think that is not on."

So exactly how good is he? "I don’t know what to say to that. I really don’t. The only thing that can get close to it is to ask how the public has responded. And they have responded hugely to me. I can only think that it’s because what I do touches them and pleases them. I have no illusions about myself. I know the game I am in, and it is a bit of a game. I am also aware that since I taught myself to paint, I must be making mistakes. But it ain’t broke so I am not going to try to fix it."

The obvious question is whether art school would have made Vettriano a better artist. He was on the point of inventing an educational past - like Delhi School of Art, he jokes - when the late art critic W Gordon Smith, one of the few to champion him, told him he was lucky. Nobody had got to his head. Nobody had told him what to think or how to paint. Vettriano’s agent, Tom Hewlett, agrees. "I’m sure art school would have made him more technically accomplished. But I’m equally sure his creativity would have been taught out of him. Jack is not as technically gifted as some painters, but there is no other artist who can paint atmosphere as well as him. He paints from the heart."

Vettriano describes Hewlett as his best friend - though he wouldn’t be Hewlett’s, he says, because Hewlett doesn’t need him outside of business. Hewlett understands him, knows what he is thinking. But later, when I meet Hewlett, he is reticent. He talks about Vettriano the painter, but Vettriano the man is up to me. What did I think? That Vettriano is fascinating: funny, contradictory, complicated, incredibly insecure and surprisingly in need of approval. Hewlett merely smiles. He wouldn’t disagree? No. And what does he, as Vettriano’s friend, know about him that the public doesn’t? "I think what most people don’t understand is how humble he is. He doesn’t quite believe it is all happening."

THE door opens and a waiter heads for the bar with a spectacular floral arrangement. Vettriano breaks off. "These are for you, Catherine," he says, "I wanted you to feel special." He raises his voice. "She’s over here!" I laugh. "No, I’ll get you a coffee," he says, "but I don’t stretch to that…"

"Namby-pamby stuff," I finish.

Vettriano picks up his thread, then stops, my words percolating through. "Interesting that you use the words ‘namby-pamby’. I don’t do flowers, and I’ll tell you why. I once dated a girl in a perfumery department." (What are the odds that he once dated a girl in lingerie too?) "On Valentine’s Day and at Christmas, all the girls were showing off bouquets the men had sent. But I would rather give you a CD that told you something about me, or that contained a message."

Strange. I thought flowers would have fitted Vettriano’s view of love perfectly. Beautiful but short-lived. A spray of fireworks against the night sky, then nothing. "Wither and die," he says. "No, I want something you can keep." Maybe because you can’t keep him, or his emotions. He admits that 30% of him wants some woman to come along and change his life, and 70% knows it won’t happen. He also admits that he doesn’t nurture even friendship, and is "the world’s greatest when it comes to cutting people off. But I do believe some friendships are time-limited - and should be."

His paintings reveal so much about his attitudes, his fantasies. Does he mind the public knowing that he has visited lap-dancing clubs and brothels? No. He doesn’t want them thinking he sits in some bloody bungalow churning out paintings about things he has never experienced. "What are we doing if we are trying to fool the public into thinking we lead a different kind of life?"

Then he goes into it’s-just-Jack mode. "The fact that I went to a some lap-dancing clubs and a few saunas - I mean, show me a man in Scotland who says he doesn’t want to, and I’ll show you a bloody liar."

But he doesn’t want that permanently in his life. "I want it when I want it. It’s like a man who wants a lovely mother and an attractive wife to take to the annual dance. But he doesn’t mind a weekend away with his secretary. It’s that sort of dual thing." So is sex better with someone you love or someone you don’t? "I think the best sex ever is with someone you love. I just don’t think it lasts." Unlike CDs.

There is almost always a man and a woman in Vettriano’s paintings, and then a third party, an onlooker. Is he the participant or the outsider? "Mostly the outsider." His paintings are "strictly for voyeurs", he says. "They look at someone else’s misery or happiness. That’s why, in a lot of the paintings, people have their backs to you, because I am trying to create this sense of looking over their shoulders."

He may not care that his sexual tastes are on display, but it undoubtedly makes him vulnerable. Some years ago, a newspaper headline accused him of stalking a woman, though no charges resulted. Vettriano darkens at the mention. "The effect on me was devastating. I have never, ever put any woman in any kind of fearful situation. I have never, ever forced myself on anybody. And I would not, I just would not, make anybody’s life uncomfortable. It’s not in my nature to do it. It hurt me because my parents were devastated by it."

He has a "working relationship" with his brother and two sisters, who all live within five miles of each other, but he loves his parents. Methil had a macho mining culture, but his father never had any difficulty putting his arm round him and saying well done. And Vettriano changed his name from Hogan because, well, Vettriano was a great name. But it was also his mother’s maiden name, and he loves his mother. He wants life to be all pleasure for his parents now, not tainted by seedy headlines. "It really makes me wonder if it is all worth it."

But of course it’s worth it. Vettriano is driven. He has been up painting all night before this interview. "I can’t do it any more. I shouldn’t do it any more. I’m sitting here pouring my heart out because I’m exhausted."

He asks where I am going now. To the Portland Gallery, to see his new pictures and to speak to Hewlett. Right, he says, I can take a taxi and drop him off first for a sleep.

So let’s end with a picture too. A man and a woman in a black taxi. Very Vettriano. The woman is looking at the man and thinking he has unsettled her; perhaps it is her world view that is strange. Then the man says the interview went well, but those questions made him reconsider his life. The questions held no value judgement, replies the woman, they were simply questions. Well, says the man, they made me think, I have to stop living like this. He gets out of the taxi, and as the woman kisses him on the cheek she thinks, but I bet you won’t.

An exhibition of new work by Jack Vettriano can be seen at London’s Portland Gallery from this weekend until Saturday, July 31. The gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, and on Saturday, 11am to 4pm. Admission is free