Hello Jack Vettriano

In terms of commercial clout and international popularity, Jack Vettriano is Scotland's most successful living artist by a considerable margin - his prints sell in such huge quantities that he reportedly earns £500,000 a year in royalties alone. Yet for reasons best known to themselves, officials at the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) still refuse to exhibit his work. Vettriano has railed against this state of affairs for years, but to no avail. As far as the NGS are concerned, it seems his work simply doesn't cut the mustard.

It was a historic moment, then, when Edinburgh band St Jude's Infirmary cheekily unveiled a Vettriano painting at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Saturday night, at the launch party for their outstanding new album, This Has Been The Death of Us. The gig was the latest in a series of live music performances taking place this month, as part of the groundbreaking street art exhibition Rough Cut Nation (www.roughcutnation.co.uk).

Resting on an easel to the right of a makeshift stage, Vettriano's moody self-portrait was only on display for about an hour, while St Jude's performed a mixture of old favourites and material for their new record. But the point had been made: Jack had finally entered the building, albeit via the back door.

The painting, which appears on the cover of the new St Jude's album, is entitled Marked Heart, and shows Vettriano standing against a dark background with one arm outstretched.

"He looks like he's about to slit his wrists listening to a St Jude's track," joked the band's guitarist Grant Campbell after the gig.

Vettriano and St Jude's have admired each other's work for some time now. The group first caught Vettriano's attention in 2006, when they sent him a recording of their song Goodbye Jack Vettriano, the lyrics to which Campbell wrote when he was feeling homesick in a bar in Rotterdam and saw a Vettriano print on the wall.

St Jude's asked the artist if he would appear in a video they were making for BBC Scotland's The Music Show and he agreed, telling The Scotsman at the time: "It's a really brilliant song... it's all about the pain we feel falling in and out of love."

Along with crime writer Ian Rankin, another St Jude's fan, Vettriano has lent his thick, treacly vocals to a number of spoken word interludes on the new album. The band's singer and guitarist, Mark Francis, says he sounds "like a very Fife God".

And although he couldn't be in Edinburgh on Saturday to see his work finally make it into the Portrait Gallery, Vettriano was apparently aware that St Jude's were planning the stunt and gave them his blessing.

To watch an interview with Grant Campbell and Mark Francis, and to watch St Jude's Infirmary performing Goodbye Jack Vettriano live at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, click on the YouTube link above.