“Jack Vettriano is not even an artist. He just happens to be popular, with ‘ordinary people’ who buy reproductions of his pseudo-1930s scenes of high-heeled women and monkey-suited men, and celebrities who fork out for the originals of these toneless, textureless, brainless slick corpses of paintings. I urge you to visit the National Gallery. Look at great paintings for a few hours. Now take a look at Vettriano. I’m not arguing with you; I’m telling you. I look at art every day and I know what I don’t like. There I go – being elitist. Art critics are, in the game Vettriano plays, snobbish patsies. Critical disdain is part of Vettriano’s success, making him ‘controversial’.”