Fancy an old boiler door for £60,000?
(Well, it was painted by Jack Vettriano...)
I T MIGHT s eem s t eep t o pay £60,000 for a cupboard door – but that’s what one wooden panel is expected to fetch at auction this week because it features an original painting by one of the country’s most successful living artists.
Jack Vettriano, below, painted Suddenly Last Summer directly on to the boiler cupboard door in the onebedroom London fl at where he used to live.
The artist, who also used t he Knightsbridge flat as his studio, painted a stylish woman, leaning against a car and smoking a cigarette, to hide the unsightly panel back in 1999. And when he sold the flat to move back to Scotland in 2013, the door was included.
The buyer sold the flat two years later but sensibly kept the door with its 37in x 24in signed oil painting, which is being sold at Christie’s on Tuesday.
Vettriano, 68, once explained: ‘To cover up the boiler cupboard I painted directly over the door. It was inspired by a love affair I had with a married woman some time ago.’
The portrait takes up the top half of a larger d o o r, and Albany Bell from the auction house said: ‘The artist is excited that it’s coming up for sale and loves that it’s out there. He’s fully supportive of it. The work is still on the door so we are exhibiting it intact as the artist had it. It will be up to the new buyer whether they decide to cut it down, but for us it adds to the story. ‘We’ve had interest already. It has everything you’d want f r om a Vettriano – it’s very stylish, a very cool image and very well- painted with a sense of intrigue. ‘ It’s a really special thing and we think it should do very well against its £40,000 to £60,000 estimate. Hopefully it will go to a good home.’ Vettriano was born Jack Hoggan in 1951 and raised in Fife. He took up painting when a girlfriend bought him a set of watercolours for his 21st birthday, and later adopted his mother’s maiden name. He once said his paintings were inspired by ‘25 years of sexual misbehaviour’ and i n 2004 his most famous work, The Singing Butl e r, fetched almost £ 750,000 at auction.