AN eagle-eyed designer who raised questions about the distinctiveness of Jack Vettriano's most famous work after spotting a similar image in an artist's teaching manual has cleared the air with the painter – over an impromptu drink.
In 2005 the Sandy Robb noticed that Vettriano's painting, The Singing Butler, was similar to drawings in a book, the Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual.
Mr Robb recently bumped into the Fife-born painter in the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh, close to the artist's home and also well known for being a favourite haunt of writer Ian Rankin.
The 61-year-old told Vettriano it was he who had revealed his secret to a newspaper – however after a drink, the men parted on good terms.
Mr Robb said: "Vettriano moved into a flat quite near the Oxford Bar and that's where I met him.
"We had a drink and I told him I was the guy who went to the papers.
"He was quite shocked. We got on all right after. I don't think he's got a grudge against me.
"I met him in the streets a couple of weeks before that and he admitted to using the images from the book but the composition that he created was his and I agreed with him.
"He's quite a decent guy really. He had his arm broken at the time [the artist had a fall] and I think he was a bit down in the dumps."
In 2005, Sandy had been asked by a friend to design invitations and decided to do a take on Vettriano's work, and looked at the manual for inspiration.
He said his "jaw dropped" when he saw the similarities before realising many of the figures were almost identical.
He said: "I still have the manual I used to copy him.
"The funny thing is I was doing a kind of spoof of Vettriano and looking in the book for images like the dancers.
"I found the ones he used. I found all the other figures in The Singing Butler and another three pictures of his had images from the book as well.
"I was in the same boat as him kind of thing, using the book the same way as he did."
The manual, which cost £16.99 in 1987, included images posed by models which were designed to be inspiration for drawings or paintings.
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