Jack Vettriano is another ‘local lad’ and I don’t know of anyone who has no opinion of his art, people either seem to love his work or hate it. In fact I know of a couple of women who had been best friends for about 30 years (I’m not either of them) but they nearly came to blows when they were having a ‘chat’ about his art. Apparently The Singing Butler is the most popular print ever. Did I hear you say How common? Well it must say something for an awful lot of people but it doesn’t do anything for me.

The art world has more or less shunned Vettriano and there’s probably a lot of snobbishness involved in that but the Kirkcaldy Art Gallery and Museum always has a few things of his on diplay. I have to say that the prints in the shops are actually a lot better looking than the originals which can have quite blotchy areas of paint.

One of my brothers loves this one though so I did find myself buying it for him a few Christmases ago. It’s called The Billy Boys and I suppose that for people who hanker after the 1950s then they’re just the sort of thing that they want on their walls.

I know that they’re a bit of a nostalgic trip back in time for women who wore those big sticky out polka dot dresses in the 1950s too. The suspender belt things just make me shudder but men of a certain type obviously enjoy them, Jack Nicholson has an original – I always suspected he was a bit ‘dodgy’!

This one is called Bluebird at Bonneville and it’s the only one which I think is quite good and I think that that is because of the fashions portrayed in it. Everybody just looks so elegant and I thought that Vettriano must be improving so I was quite disappointed when I saw the original photo and realised that he had just copied it.

I find his images really soulless, they have a photographic quality which I don’t like in paintings. I feel the same about Hopper’s work too. So what about you, do you love his art work or hate it?