Vettriano - Only the Deepest Red. A Recollection. An Ode to the artist and my friend.

2025 has been quite the year so far. Actually, quite the year in ways I did not expect—or want. But from it, as always, we must find the path forward and the good in all that comes. The thread of life is not meant to take us too far from who we are, but the journey does, at times, meander and leave us wandering... Loss is the hardest to take.

I am writing a book now—recollections of my friendship with Jack Vettriano, my long-term friend and collaborator—who passed away on the 1st March this year, in it I describe the journey we took and all the unexpected twists and turns that ultimately ended where it all began: in friendship.

The job of an artist, and as a writer, I think, is to keep the threads of life in balance and to find the golden pieces—that connect it all together—to preserve them and make some sense of them: ultimately to deliver something tangible. Something readable that points to the purpose, the poetry : maybe the small pieces that were actually big ones—and to make them something.

Life is so fleeting. And in moments like this, when what we thought would always be there is lost, I think all we truly have are these thread that may lead us to some higher truth. Golden threads which hold us together—and to each other.

So as a way to introduce the book, I am sharing with you a short interview that I made with my inter this Spring. I introduce him to you - please meet Tyler Kirwan, a student of journalism from Missouri University. He came to work with me the week that I learned of Jack's death, so all the work that I had planned for us to do, didn't happen. On the day of our first meeting the sad news came and this sent me on a different direction for those days, a direction which I maintained and led to me changing course and focussing on the book that Jack and I had discussed. As I would always say to my interns, as I have learned myself, the key to harmony and success for me, lies in the ability to pivot and so pivot we did. As story tellers our job is to tell the stories which are relevant and sometimes those stories come unexpectedly and so the skill of moving into them is key to our profession. Tyler did just that with me and so together we took a journey which looked differently to what we had planned but the result was an unfolding story and this interaction and conversation during our last day together was one of the results. I would just like to acknowledge that I believe that Tyler has a talent for his future as a journalist as he pulled out the key points and there is a thread from the beginning to the end, as there will be in the book, which sums up the story well. So thank you to Tyler for your trust and for unfolding into this. Here is the interview that we made. I think it is a good way to introduce the book and what it will be, how it came to be and the essence of the thread which was born a long time ago and finds itself here whole. I introduce now Tyler Kirwan and his interview.

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

Grace Lambert-Phillips is currently writing a book about the late artist Jack Vettriano and their friendship. 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-Phillips 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. 

TK: 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 used to say to me, you should write about this period, because it was quite special, the period in London at that time. 

It was like a different world, and it started with a little whispering idea like that. It was like he said years ago, you should write about this because he had read some things that I was writing and he liked it, and quite often people would ask him if they could write a biography, an authorized biography… but he never liked that idea because he felt that he was being misunderstood by everybody and the tabloid newspapers were often 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 first of all: he asked me to do it, it came from him, and secondly: I have so many stories about him, recollections of my time with him, things that he did, that he said, that we experienced, things that are interesting, funny, beautiful and many times poetic and so why wouldn't I write a book about that?

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

I am in a unique position that I knew him as an artist, but also 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 story completely so therefore I feel it is my duty to do it, that's why, that's where it started.

TK: 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 am actually reading Ernest Hemingway's book,‘A Moveable Feast’ and this is 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 of the black forest, there's no mention of the boxers who would serve as waiters at the table and then they would box under the tree in the garden.” 

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 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 will 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 hurt anyone, it's not about that and there are things I just wouldn't mention as they may be too private. It is a respectful recollection of an artist that I do respect and admire, but also, it's an observation of how we can all be dark and light.

TK: 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 that 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, and loads of notes. 

The way I do it, it may appear 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 at the beginning with our personal meeting. 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 years before I even understood that. I was born in the town where he lived, and while he wasn't born there, he was born a little further in the same coast 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, as I grew so was his reputation. 

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 and our lives intertwined in the same geographical location. 

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 are two separate eras of the same place. Jack had captured the world that my mum spoke about to me as I was growing up. Jack's paintings were reflecting what my mum had been telling me of their era.

I realized that my life and his were so connected that the stories were much bigger than just what I had experienced. I'm able to go from the moment that I met him and the anticipation of that and 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 too in some ways.

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

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 entirely complimentary will not be to be hurtful but to be truthful and human. 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 I think it's your job to go to those edges of things and live to tell the tale and to tell it. This is what Jack did and he was honest about it too.

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

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 creating art and being in that place of creation, it was just normal, it wasn't like I was labelling myself as an artist, but he recognized me as one. He gave me permission to be an artist, as 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 create from this freedom, never to compromise who you are. Truth was very important to Jack.

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

GLP: Exactly.

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