Two artists, two paintings, one legal row

ONE is a photograph, one is a Jack Vettriano oil painting valued at a minimum of £35,000 and the other is a picture by an unknown Ayrshire artist that sold for £540. The question is, which painting came first?

Joe McLaughlin, a former print-shop worker turned painter, has been accused of copying Vettriano’s work and threatened with legal action. Tom Hewlett, the director of London’s Portland Gallery and Vettriano’s agent, believes McLaughlin’s picture, and its use on a website, is "unquestionably a clear breach of copyright".

At issue is Vettriano’s painting Reach Out and Touch and two of McLaughlin’s works, The Artist and Jack, which show a marked similarity in pose, though hardly in style.

McLaughlin claims his work was inspired by a photograph of Vettriano, standing next to a naked model, that appeared in a Sunday newspaper magazine in March last year. He painted The Artist that month, but Jack, which he calls a mirror image of the first painting, was completed only this year.

He insists the photograph must also have inspired Vettriano’s own work. He said: "I don’t know when Jack Vettriano did his own painting, but he didn’t release it until the spring of 2004, so unless I was clairvoyant, I couldn’t do it."

Reach Out and Touch appeared in an exhibition of new Vettriano work, the first in four years, at the Portland Gallery this summer, and is marked on its website as sold. Prices for the works in that exhibition were reported at between £35,000 and £120,000.

McLaughlin is using The Artist as his logo, while Jack is featured on his website, although most of his paintings appear very different in style from those of Vettriano.

McLaughlin gave The Scotsman a copy of what he said was an e-mail from Mr Hewlett, dated 5 July this year. Referring to the web-listing for Jack, it said: "Please delete this item immediately ... we act for Mr Vettriano and we require an undertaking from you to destroy this image and not to copy other works of his."

Catherine Scollon, the manageress of the Paisley Picture Framers and Gallery, confirmed that McLaughlin took The Artist into her gallery in August 2003, and that she sold it in May this year for £540.

"Seemingly, Jack Vettriano painted the same format, and his gallery is telling Joseph that he should not be selling that and he should rip it up, but he had actually painted it previous to Jack Vettriano," she said.

"I wouldn’t say it looks the same painting. It was the same view, but it’s two very different styles. Joseph is more contemporary."

Mr Hewlett confirmed that John Swannell, a photographer, went to Vettriano’s studio with a model in February 2003.

He said: "As a result of this visit, when various photographs were taken, Jack embarked on a series of paintings which would have been completed by June of that year.

"I have no idea when or how Joe McLaughlin saw these images of Jack’s but his work is clearly a copy of this - albeit a bad one - and is in clear breach of copyright."

McLaughlin worked for a Paisley printing business until last year, when the firm closed and he was made redundant. At the age of 43, he decided to become a full-time artist.