By looking at these dates we gather that he lived for a long long time and he survived quite a lot: In 2002, Tretchikoff had a stroke that left him unable to paint and he died in 2006 at the age of 92. His most famous artworks include Chinese Girl, Mrs Wong and the Balinese Girl but he was sneered at by the elitist art world and often called the ‘King of Kitsch’ but Tretchikoff has made a fortune by defying the art establishment.

It might horrify art critics, but Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl is one of the world's most reproduced works. Now the original painting will be offered at Bonhams. Designer Wayne Hemingway admires its appeal Definitely firmly in the ‘kitsch vintage’ category (and likely to be sniffed at by any serious antique art collectors), the prints of Vladimir Tretchikoff’s paintings are undeniably enjoying a real revival. Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff led a peripatetic life in his early days. While he was born in Petropavlovsk, Russia in 1913, in 1917 he and his parents and siblings, escaped to Harbin, China, at the onset of the Russian Revolution. As a young man Tretchikoff lived in Shanghai, where he met and married Natalie Telpregoff (a fellow Russian refugee). The couple moved to Singapore after their 1935 wedding and lived there until the Japanese bombed the city in 1942, forcing Natalie and their daughter Mimi to evacuate. Tretchikoff also fled the city soon afterwards but was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in Java. As a prisoner of war, Tretchikoff was allowed restricted freedom to continue painting and selling his works. It was also in Java that he met his muse and mistress, Lenka (one of many such relationships that he would have throughout his life). At the war’s end Tretchikoff reunited with his family in South Africa, the country that he would call home for the rest of his life. Tretchikoff, consciously or not, spat in the face of elitism in the art world. Before he decided to mass-produce his prints in 1952, the wealthy would pay significant sums for his originals. Their prices fitted the investment economy of high-brow culture. However, within two years of the paintings being reproduced in print form, Tretchikoff became relegated to 'low-brow' status. Another admirer of Tretchikoff saidhe achieved everything that AndyWarhol stated he wanted to do, but could never achieve because of his ‘coolness’.For Natalie and his daughter’s Mimi’s safety Tretchikoff had to load them onto a ship, not knowing if he would ever see them again. Eventually, men were allowed to leave Singapore but only with a permission slip, but because of all of his important rich friends, his name was on the list of men allowed to leave. Growing up in Morecambe with a Nan who loved to fill the house with 'exotica' and mass-market artworks, I never paid much notice to the 'green lady' that peered down from above the mantelpiece. But when Nan died and we sorted out her belongings, I couldn't bear to get rid of the picture and I took it down to my flat in London. Chinese Girl (often popularly known as The Green Lady) is a 1952 painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff. Mass-produced prints of the work in subsequent years were among the best-selling of the twentieth century. [1] The painting is of a Chinese young woman and is best known for the unusual skin tone used for her face—a blue-green colour, which gives the painting its popular name The Green Lady.

In 1946 he was reunited with his wife and their daughter Mimi in South Africa, who both had been successfully evacuated on an earlier boat. This was a great way to make a deal with the department stores to exhibit his art. People wouldbuy a print get it signed in-store by Tretchikoff and then also buy the frame from the department store. Tretchikoff wanted everybody to have access to beautiful art. What happened between 1948 and 1952? We will discuss some reasons on why his art created such a hype a little bit later but let’s just consider this is the time of Apartheid in South Africa where people were sorted and divided according to race, do you think the Apartheid government liked Tretchikoff’s art?

Issue 34, Spring 2013

Soon after they left the ship he was on was bombed by the Japanese, only 42 people survived and he managed to escape on one of the lifeboats. What happened after Tretchikoff’s narrow escape?