Artist In Residence

His originals hang in the homes of the rich and famous (including JackNicholson, Sir Terence Conran and Raymond Blanc), but it is the millions ofgreeting cards that have been bought that have played a bigger role insustaining and feeding the nation's love for artist Jack Vettriano's nostalgicfigurative artwork.

Now, having severed a long-time agreement with The Art Group (with asell off period finishing in April), Jack Vettriano is launching HeartbreakPublishing, a co-owned greeting card and prints company that is to publishnot only his work but that of other artists too.

PG found out more about the greeting card aspirations of the UK's mostpopular artist.

"I'm always really touched to hear thatpeople seem to engage with the narrativecontent in my work and that they thenwant to share it, or the sentiment in it,with other people. Greeting cards perhapsoffer people the most immediate andpersonal way to do this, which is lovely."Jack Vettriano

"I've always loved sending and receiving

cards. I think there's something terribly

personal and even intimate about the

experience of both choosing a card to send to

someone and anticipating their response.The

combination of imagery and words is a very

potent one," Jack Vettriano (the man behind

the paintbrush of famous Singing Butler, Mad

Dogs, Dance With Me Until The End Of Time,

Billy Boys among many others) told PG."No

email, no matter how well worded, could ever

take the place of a well chosen and written

card - it's something to be kept,cherished and

re-read," he added.Jack is well aware of the many thousands

of greeting cards that have been bought, sent

and cherished featuring his work. So, after

years of licensing his many famous works to

The Art Group for greeting cards, prints and

posters, Jack Vettriano is becoming a

publisher himself, albeit in a modest way to

start with.The agreement with The Art Group was

originally expected to run until 2010, but itschange in ownership meant that Jack and his

co-director Nathalie Martin brought forward

their plans to launch Heartbreak Publishing.

The Art Group no longer has the rights

to reprint any of Jack's images on cards, prints

or posters, but it is able to sell throughexisting stock until April. After this the only

cards bearing Jack's work will be available

from H e a r t b r e a k Publ ish ing, though

subsequent licensing agreements with other

card publishers are also likely to follow.

But this is not Jack's first foray as a cardpublisher under his own stead.

The name of the new company,

Heartbreak Publishing, does not evoke themost positive sentiment for a new

business, but the reason behind the choice

is nostalgic - and somewhat in keeping

with the tone of the paintings of which

Jack is famed.

Above and right: Jack Vettriano in his studio. These photographs are byFredi Marcarini, a Milan based photographer with whom lack is focollaborate later this year. Jhey worked together on these photographsand a triptych of limited edition prints wit! be made available on theHeartbreak site when it launches at the end of this month.

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Artist In Residence

"I first published a few of my images as

cards under the name Heartbreak Publishing

close to 20 years ago - long before the era of

email and mobile phones took the romance

out of keeping in touch," he explained.

"I'm really delighted to now have an

opportunity to revive Heartbreak and hope

people will indulge my more melancholic

side in the choice of the name, but for me the

experience of the different aspects of love

and romance has always been tinged with

moments of sadness, longing and regret - all

emotions that have been as much a source of

inspiration to me as the moments of sheer joy

and passion that make life worth living for us

all," he said adding more colour to the

company name's selection.

Perhaps a more fitting name would havebeen 'Reunion Publishing' due to those

involved in its running - as the people who

defined his commercial success are nowworking together again.

Nathalie Martin, Jack's co director in

Heartbreak Publishing, knows Jack's work and

Left: The Singing Butler, lack Vettriano'!most famous painting. Jack sold thispainting very early on in his career for£2,000, the original changed hands throughan auction atSothebys for 1750,000.Below:'ATest Of True Love', is a particularfavourite of Jack's as it relates to a storyabout Vincent Van Gogh, one of his artisticheroes. This is the sort of image Heartbreakis more likely to hold back for websiteexclusives because of its quirkier appeal.

the man himself extremely

wel l . For 15 y e a r s she

worked for Portland Gallery

(Jack's art dealer until June2007 before he opted for

s e l f - r e p r e s e n t a t i o n

th rough H e a r t b r e a k ) .

Through her time at Portland she got to know

the collectors, the galleries who showed his

work and the licensees of his work, such as

The Art Group.

Another key person involved in

Heartbreak Publishing is Sian Rees, former art

director of The Art Group for 17 years before

she left the business last summer.

Sian is happy to share the glory of'discovering' Jack Vettriano's work for The Art

Group back in 1994 with The Art Group's

founder Ian Bell, and she is also happy to nowbe working with Nathalie at Heartbreak as a

consultant. It is her plan to develop future

licensing tie-ups with publishers for Jack's

work (as well as other artists) plus develop

bespoke products.

Milly Boyd, another ex-Art Group

employee also has a desk in Heartbreak'sLondon offices from where she is now

working on a freelance basis and is involved

(together with Sian) on developing greeting

card and product ranges for companies.

"You simply cannot ignore the huge

sales his images still generate - the public

loves his work,"says Sian."And there are lots of

images that they haven't even seen yet."

Although Heartbreak's first clutch of cards

(and open edition prints) will include the'dassics'of which The Singing Butler is undoubtedly the

most famous, in addition it will be releasing

some images that although painted in the same

era have not really been widely seen before.

Added to this, the website will also offer designs

which represent Jack's current style for thedarker, more erotic paintings.

"Jack is a prolific painter and we have

500 images he has created over the last 20years from which to draw. What is so good

though is that he will be a lot more involved

in the whole operation, helping to ensure

that the brand is not over exposed, as it has

been in the past."

In addition, Hear tb reak

Publishing will also showcase other

artists'work with the website set to

debut at the end of this month with

the first phase of artists.With no licensing deals yet in

place with other publishers for

Jack's work initially, retailers' onlyoption to buy Jack's work is through

the Heartbreak Publishing website,

but just as a painting is made up of

many different brush strokes so the

full picture is yet to show itself.

The Artist's ProfileBorn in Fife, Scotland in 1951, Jack Vettriano left school at 16 to become a mining engineer. For his 21 st birthday, a girlfriend gave him aset of watercolour paints and, from then on, he spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint. In 1989, he submitted twopaintings to the Royal Scottish Academy's annual exhibition; both were accepted and sold on the first day.The following year, anequally enthusiastic reaction greeted the three paintings, which he entered for the prestigious Summer Exhibition at London's RoyalAcademy and his new life as an artist really began.

Over the last 20 years, interest in Jack's work has grown consistently.There have been sell-out solo exhibitions in Edinburgh,London, Hong Kong and New York. In 2004 his best known painting,The Singing Butler was sold at Sotheby's for almost £750,000 andin the same year he was awarded an QBE for Services to the Visual Arts and was the subject of a South Bank Show documentary,entitled 'JackVettriano:The People's Painter1.

From 1994-2007, Vettriano was represented by Portland Gallery in London but that relationship ended in June 2007. Since then,Vettriano has been focusing on a variety of projects, including the launch of Heartbreak Publishing, a new book, a painting of a portraitof Zara Phillips as part of a charity fundraising project for Sport Relief, and working towards a retrospective exhibition (likely to bestaged in the UK, America and Dubai) in 2010.

A constant frustration to Jack, and bemusement to his millions of fans, is that his work has been continually shunned by theacademic art world - and with the exception of Kirkcaldy Gallery, there is none of his work on show in public galleries - but there arethousands of greeting card pockets displaying his art to the population.

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