ONLY THE DEEPEST RED

Recounting a Legacy; Grace Lambert Phillips discusses her book about esteemed artist Jack Vettriano

Interview by Tyler Kirwan,
Student of Journalism, University of Missouri
Spring Intern for The Lambert Phillips Foundation, Florence, 2025

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Grace Lambert Phillips is currently writing a book about  her late friend Jack Vettriano. This book will tell Lambert-Phillip’s version of Vettriano’s story, a man she grew close to over their two decades of collaboration. Vettriano was a trophied Scottish painter and Lambert-Philips was not only, a muse of his but a close friend. Lambert-Phillips is here to tell her part of the Jack story, a man who was much more than just a painter, he was a friend, a son, and a human. Working for Grace, I sat down with her and inquired about her upcoming project. 

 

TW: Okay, so first off, I'm just going to ask, when did this project start for the first time, this consideration of writing a book? 

 

GLP:  Well, I was always writing. I've always been writing…I was always doing it.  So when I met Jack and I was working with him and he was painting me and I was taking photographs of him… he used to say to me, what are you writing? You should write more.. And he suggested that I wrote about this period because it was quite special, the period in London at that time and our meeting. 

It was like a different world, and it started with a little whispering idea like that because he read some things that I was writing and he liked it. Quite often people would ask him if they could write a biography, like an authorized biography… he never liked that idea because he felt that he was being misunderstood by everybody and the tabloid newspapers were sort of tearing him apart and critics were tearing apart his work and he was like, the last thing I need is someone writing a book about my sordid life. The reasons why I think I should do this is because, one: he asked me to do it, it came from him, and two: I have so many stories about him, recollections of my time with him, things that he did, things that he said, things that we experienced, that are interesting and fun, beautiful and poetic and why wouldn't I write a book about that?

I think two years ago, in 2023, I had reconnected with Jack after a little time had passed and we hadn't seen each other… and he said to me, again, you should write about this.

I was in a unique position that I knew him as an artist, as a friend, as he was like a father figure to me in some ways…I wasn't just his model that he painted, I was also an artist myself so we understood each other in a soulful way and so I think I would be the only person that could really write this book so therefore I feel it is my duty to do it, that's why, that's where it started.

 

TW: You can do [this project] much more justice because you've seen every facet of him in a way… you have this connection like you said, a father figure, a friend, an artist and you see all of these aspects of him over a 20 something years span, a 25 years span?

 

GLP:  I saw the good and the bad, you know, it's not all just fancy sort of ‘oh he was lovely,’ he wasn't always lovely, but I know this because I was so close to him. I feel like he's writing this book with me. 

I was actually reading the Ernest Hemingway book, called ‘A Moveable Feast’, his autobiographical recollections of Paris and the writers and artists that he met… and in the preface he writes in a short paragraph, that here were some things in this book for reasons that he would not even say ...that he won't mention: 'there's no mention of the voyages to the black forest, there's no mention of the boxers who would serve as waiters at the table and then would box under the tree in the garden.' for example. 

He said there were"some things which are secret, and it would be fine if all of these things were in the book but we'll have to do without them for now and if the reader prefers this book may be regarded as fiction because there's always a chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact."

I love that because it is in a way fiction if you're having a recollection, it's your memory it's your fiction, because we all have our way of remembering things. It doesn't mean that it was a fact to anyone else, but it is to you. 

[With my book] it's this recollection of a life and a poetic meeting and so it may be taken almost I guess as fiction, and I might change some names for example because you know I don't want it to be a book that's going to be trashy and shaming anyone, it's not about that.. It is a respectful recollection of an artist that I respect and admire, who was my friend but also, it's an observation of how we can all be dark and light.

 

TW: It being your truth, makes it almost like the most honest it can be. It’s coming wholly from your perspective and how you remember things to create this well-rounded picture of Jack's life.

How are you working through writing? Where does it start, where do you begin when you open it up and start writing?

 

GLP: I don't know it's a really big undertaking, I think how I started was I would start

writing memories, so there's two answers here, how the book is going to start and how I started writing, it's not the same thing. How I started was, I was already just writing pieces, writing recollections, writing stories, so I've already got excerpts from each chapter already written, or I've got threads, so I have loads of notes. 

The way I do it, is it's a bit chaotic. I've got notes on my phone, I've got scraps of paper, I've got notes on my computer; I've got chapter lists of just one line. If I remember a memory, I'll just put it into like a chapter or a subheading or something. Personally, if I don't write things down when I remember them, they probably do get forgotten and there's nothing more tragic to a writer or an artist than forgotten ideas. 

The first chapter of the book starts with the beginning of our physical journey together. I decided to start with the moment before I met Jack, which was me going to a book signing. That's how it starts, but then I very quickly start to reflect back, it's one of those stories that will be jumping back and forward in time. Jack and I met 25 years ago when he was in his late 40s, so I didn't know him until he was 48, but my life and his life were intertwined before I realised. . I was born in the town where he once lived, and while he wasn't born there, he was born a little further along the same coastline  of Scotland, so we shared the same region. Everyone in my town knew him because he was becoming famous when I was a kid growing up. 

The year I was born was the year that his girlfriend gave him paints and he started painting and the year that I left school was the year he got married so our lives were intertwined before he was even known at all.  

If you take a look at his early work, you'll see that it's all about beaches and dancers and the time when he was born and the time when I was born which are two separate times of the same place. But Jack had captured the world that my mum spoke about as I was growing up. Jack's paintings were reflecting what my mum was telling me about the ballrooms and beaches of the town.

I realized that my life and his were so connected that the stories were much bigger than just my friendship with him. I was able to go from the moment that I met him or just before, and the anticipation of that and then it unfolded into the stories of my mum talking about what he was really talking about in his paintings. I'm able to go into the present, the past almost, and the future as well.

I think it will just be a really beautiful story that could be one of remembering him as someone great. The press destroyed him in his life and that just upsets me because I think they didn't know him. It's still quite new, that he's gone, so I'm kind of a bit emotional but it's a good time I think to write because it gives a depth to it, which is emotional but which is good for the writing.

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TK: You did know him, and I think that's why it's difficult having to step up and be brave and really put these memories to paper. It's quite vulnerable.

 

GLP: You're really exposing yourself, and there are some people who were not kind about him and so it's kind of a sort of resolution to that or a counteraction to that. I want to do him justice, because I knew him in a human way, and he deserves that. This is going to be an ode to him in a way which will be lovely and anything that I do write which is not complimentary will not be for the purpose of being hurtful but true. It’s beautiful to be flawed, why shouldn't we be flawed because if we're not flawed, we're robots. If we're not making mistakes, we're just not trying hard enough. If you're an artist, and you're not risking something you're not in the right job, it's your job I think.

 

TK: Do you feel that he kind of changed your perspective of creating and being an artist?

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GLP: I would say that what comes to mind is that he recognized me as an artist. He saw me as an artist even before I could have seen myself that way, so I would say that that's the most generous thing you can do to another artist is to recognize them as that. I loved making art and being in that place of creation, it was just normal to me, it wasn't like I was labeling myself as an artist, but he recognized me as one. He gave me permission to be an artist, he saw that in me and never denied that; society is always willing to potentially deny you that. He influenced me as an artist to be braver and to step into that truth.. 

 

TK: I think by you writing this about him, you are somewhat repaying that. 

 

GLP: Exactly.

 

Lambert-Phillips’ and Vetrianno’s longstanding friendship deeply impacted both of their lives. While this conversation offered a small glimpse into their world,  I look forward to reading the full story ‘Only the Deepest Red - Recollections of the muse of Jack Vettriano', by Grace Lambert-Phillips, coming in 2026.