Uncertainty over when social distancing and travel restrictions will be lifted has forced OnFife to postpone the much-anticipated Jack Vettriano: The Early Years exhibition until 2022.

Working in close liaison with the artist and collectors who are lending works from private collections, OnFife has taken the decision to reschedule this major show until next year and it will now be held from June 17 to October 23 2022.

“It hasn’t been an easy decision to make but such is the uncertainty still ahead that we cannot guarantee visitors the great experience that we had planned,” said Michelle Sweeney, OnFife Director of Creative Development.

“We also had to take into account the level of interest from throughout the UK and beyond from Vettriano fans who want to travel to Fife for the exhibition and see his works, some for the first and potentially only time.”

The exhibition, which will be held at Kirkcaldy Galleries, had originally been scheduled for 2020 and then postponed until this summer.

“We are obviously disappointed – both for the public and our teams who had been looking forward so much to this major exhibition – but our focus now has to be on ensuring that we can deliver the best possible experience to all those Vettriano fans who have waited so long for this retrospective of his work,” Michelle added.

The postponement does come with a silver lining as the exhibition will run for an additional two months, allowing far greater access than was previously possible and giving more people the opportunity to attend over the summer and October holiday periods next year.

All current ticket holders will be contacted to arrange new dates before tickets go on general sale again.

The exhibition has continued to generate widespread interest as it will feature early paintings by Vettriano, including nearly a dozen produced before he decided to become a full-time artist and are signed Jack Hoggan, his birth name.

In recognition of the process of development and evolution that has taken him from the self-taught artist who was turned down by art college to one of the world’s most highly sought after living painters, Vettriano decided the time was right to publicly acknowledge some of his earliest works and has chosen to return to Fife where he was born and spent his formative years.

The exhibition is a celebration of his extraordinary career and will be showing paintings he created from in his 20s until he moved to London in 2000.