by Nina Vaclavikova
Interview: curator Pietro Franca
The exhibition at the Salone degli Incanti runs from Oct. 29, 2026, to May 2, 2027, exploring the Scottish painter’s career through paintings, works on paper, photographs and film.
An exhibition dedicated to Scottish painter Jack Vettriano opens Thursday at Trieste’s Salone degli Incanti, bringing together more than 80 works that trace the artist’s career and his distinctive depictions of romance, desire and urban life.
The retrospective, which runs through May 2, 2027, occupies the former Central Fish Market building on the city’s waterfront. Organized by Pallavicini Srl and promoted by the Municipality of Trieste, it follows exhibitions in Bologna, Milan and Rome that attracted more than 80,000 visitors combined, according to the organizers.
Vettriano, who died in 2025, became one of Britain’s most commercially successful contemporary painters, attracting a broad international audience despite often facing criticism from the established art world. Largely self-taught, he developed a style influenced by film, advertising imagery and earlier painters, creating scenes characterized by cinematic lighting, elegant interiors and relationships marked by both intimacy and tension.
The exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, photographs and audiovisual material. It also brings together eight of Vettriano’s oil paintings, a particularly notable feature given the relatively small number of oil canvases he produced during his career, according to the organizers.
Among his best-known works is The Singing Butler, which depicts a couple dancing on a windswept beach while a maid and a butler hold umbrellas over them. The painting sold at Sotheby’s in 2004 for nearly £750,000, helping cement Vettriano’s reputation among collectors and the wider public.
The exhibition is divided into eight thematic sections, including a substantial area devoted to works on paper. It also features photographs taken in the artist’s studio by Francesco Guidicini, a portrait photographer whose work has appeared in the National Portrait Gallery in London, and a video in which Vettriano discusses his artistic development.
Although his work found a large audience, Vettriano remained a divisive figure among critics, some of whom questioned its artistic seriousness and its emphasis on accessible, romantic imagery. His popularity with the public, however, continued throughout his career.
The Trieste exhibition is part of the city’s program of major cultural events at the Salone degli Incanti, a former fish market converted into an exhibition venue.
Visitor information
The exhibition runs from Oct. 29, 2026, through May 2, 2027, at the Salone degli Incanti, Riva Nazario Sauro 1, Trieste.
Regular opening hours are Wednesday through Sunday and on public holidays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last admission at 5 p.m. Special opening schedules apply during selected holidays and the Christmas and New Year period. The exhibition will be closed Dec. 25, 2026.
Standard admission costs €16, with reduced tickets available for eligible visitors. An open-date ticket costs €18, while school-group admission is €6 per student, subject to booking requirements.
Further information is available from the organizers at info@palazzopallavicini.com.
