Over the past decade Jack Vettriano’s paintings have caught the imagination of the public like those of no other Scottish contemporary artist and this summer with the sale of his first major commission – a commission that marked a huge leap forward in the evolution of his career - he is set to be the talk, once again, of the season. Seven paintings by the legendary - and often hotly debated - artist will headline Sotheby’s sale of Scottish Pictures at the prestigious Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland on Wednesday, August 29, 2007.Among the most important works by Vettriano ever to have come to auction, the seven paintings have adorned the walls of Sir Terence Conran’s Bluebird Club on the King’s Road in Chelsea, London since 1997, when Conran – an early admirer of Vettriano’s work - commissioned the then aspiring artist to undertake the paintings to hang on the walls of his newly acquired restaurant. Each of the works took their inspiration from the celebrated Bluebird cars that Sir Malcolm Campbell (1885-1948), the world renowned racing motorist, drove when he set his nine land speed records during the 1920s and 1930s. Together the seven paintings (which are to be offered individually) are expected to fetch in excess of ￡1.2million. The Bluebird restaurant on the King’s Road was originally built as a motor-garage in the 1920s but subsequently served as an ambulance station and indoor market while steadily falling into disrepair. In 1996 it was purchased by Sir Terence Conran and extensively refurbished before reopening as the second of Conran’s Gastrodromes, accommodating two restaurants, a dining club, foodstore and flower/homeware shop, the design of which evoked the spirit and glamour of the 1920s and 1930s. It has always been believed that one of Sir Malcolm Campbell' s early bluebird cars was stored in the motor-garage in the 1920s –a connection that informed Conran’s choice of the Bluebird name for the restaurant. The well-known Chelsea eating spot leant itself well to an association with Sir Malcolm, the Englishman who captured the imagination of the whole world by breaking the land speed record on nine separate occasions between 1924 and 1935 in the exotic and streamlined cars he called Bluebirds, a name he took from a play that he admired called the Bluebird of Happiness by Maurice Maeterlink. The paintings that Conran commissioned Vettriano to paint were for exhibition in the Bluebird Club’s dining room. The works are iconic pieces which embody a film-noir style of nostalgia and a glamorous elegance tinged with undertones of danger and intrigue; of men and fast cars and women in silk gowns and sunshades. Each painting took its inspiration from a moment in the history of the much celebrated Bluebird cars.Born in 1951, Vettriano was the son of a Scottish father and an Italian mother. Completely self-taught (he began doodling as a child on the back of his grandfather’s betting slips, and later taught himself to paint by copying Old Masters using a watercolour kit bought for his 21st birthday by his then girlfriend), he has described his style as “a cross between 1930s railway posters and the covers of pulp fiction”. Whatever the reservations of his critics, Vettriano’s work combines nostalgia and modernity in a way that speaks to a very broad public and he has had huge international success.Jack Vettriano remembers: “The Bluebird series was one of my first major commissions, and I was thrilled when Sir Terence Conran approached me with the project. The brief was pretty clear: ' I know you have to paint cars, but try and make them sexy' . I have always had an interest in classic cars and so the commission really appealed. I did a lot of research on the subject, and spent six weeks in my studio producing the works – that’s slow for me! I then waited for the dreaded call……. He loved them!' Vettriano’ s works have a history of success at Sotheby’s and indeed in April 2004 Sotheby’s sold his most iconic image, The Singing Butler, for ￡744,500 - a new world auction record for a work by him and also the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction in Scotland. Sotheby’s also offered Vettriano’s Mad Dogs at Gleneagles in September 2004, where it fetched ￡330,400. Vettriano’s The Singing Butler and Mad Dogs are the two best-selling posters in Britain. Andre Zlattinger, Director and Head of Scottish Pictures at Sotheby’s, comments: “Vettriano’s works have huge public appeal and he is one of the most commercially successful living artists today. His images are some of the most frequently reproduced of our time - he is a fascinating cultural phenomenon.”Bluebird at Bonneville, estimated at ￡400,000-600,000, is perhaps the best-known of Vettriano’s Bluebird group and it is also the most valuable of the seven works. It sets the scene of dazzling sunlight refracted from the white sands of the Utah salt flats in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Sir Malcolm achieved his ninth – and last - land speed record in a Bluebird CN7 powered by both Napier and Rolls Royce engines on September 3, 1935.