Article by Eric Bandini, ericbandini.com
Copyright Eric Bandini, ericbandini.com
February, 14, 2026
The Scottish artist and painter Jack Vettriano passed away last year (2025). Even those who are not art experts – such as myself – may have heard of him because of his evocative and imaginative work entitled “The Singing Butler”, which appears here and there as an image in some web searches.
Is it a beautiful painting? The author of this article likes it, but that is only an opinion, and the subject of this piece is not the work “The Singing Butler” itself as a reference point. Rather, in this article’s writer’s opinion, the work represents a metaphorical position declaring the death of art, but it is necessary to proceed with a certain brief order.
The “death of art” has been declared time and time again over the last 200 years, perhaps first mentioned by the philosopher Hegel, but we do not intend to go so far back in time, nor in concept. In relatively recent times, it suffices to mention Piero Manzoni, and anyone, who wishes to, can search the web for information about the Italian artist (Piero Manzoni, 1933–1963).
To return to the topic at hand, namely the death of art and Scottish painter Jack Vettriano, we refer here to an article that appeared in Corriere della Sera (last year [2025 {«Italian Newspaper»}]) entitled “Jack Vettriano, painter of ‘Singing Butler’, dies”, which mentions not only the work itself in reference to its author, but also some seemingly unrelated facts, both in reference to the work and to the author.
While the artist Jack Vettriano was still alive, his work ‘The Singing Butler’ (1992) was sold at auction in 2004 for £=744’500=. Is that a lot? Is it a little?
Below is (almost [mind the translation {…}]) a verbatim quote from the Corriere della Sera article mentioned at the beginning of this article: «By a strange twist of fate, the very market that was both Jack Vettriano’s success and his curse is celebrating him right now, on 4 March (2025), by auctioning “Crude Oil” at Sotheby’s in London, a reinterpretation signed in 2005 by the great transgressor (? [the question mark is by the author of this article]) Banksy of The Singing Butler: the auction base price (certainly not insignificant) is between £3 and £5 million.»
Is it too much? Is it far too much? (Yes, I know it’s probably grammatically incorrect, but the author of this piece is a writer, equipped with poetic licence).
It’s not a question of money; art has died in the simple assumption that the cartoon is worth more than the original work, and this leads to the death of art.
February, 14, 2026
Eric Bandini