Jack Vettriano's record broken by painting

Scottish artist Peter Doig has become Europe’s most expensive living painter after one of his paintings sold for £5.7 million at auction. The White Canoe sold for five times its estimate at Sotheby’s in London. The sale easily beats the Scottish auction record, held by Jack Vettriano’s painting The Singing Butler, which fetched £744,800 in 2004. The 2 metre-square painting shows a canoe floating peacefully on a lake of reflecting colours – an image inspired by the closing scenes of the 1980 horror film Friday the 13th. He is highly rated by critics and the public for works that often show figures against dreamy landscapes of woods, water or snow. They are easy on the eye but boast richly detailed brushwork. Sotheby’s calls him “the leading painter of his generation”. The Singing Butler