Peter Doig
“There exists a tension,” Peter Doig has explained of his work, “…between the often generic representation of a pastoral scene and the investment in my own experiences of the landscape. All of the paintings have an element of autobiography in them, but I resist making the autobiographical readings overly specific.” 1 Doig’s peripatetic life provides a backdrop for understanding his work. Born in Scotland in 1959, he moved frequently as a child—following his father’s job at a shipping company—from the United Kingdom to Trinidad to Canada, steps he has retraced over the course of his adulthood. Working steadily since the 1980s, he has devoted his career to depicting landscapes tinged with the history and memory of these places.
Made soon after Doig graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in London, Pink Snow (1991), like many of his works, features a solitary male figure. Here, the figure is situated within a mysterious wooded landscape that recalls the artist’s time in Canada. The painting’s jewel-like decorative surface—of snow and its atmospheric qualities—functions like a screen, a visual interference that troubles the viewer’s relationship to the depicted scene. “That is the way the eye looks,” Doig has reflected of these effects, “you are constantly looking through things, seeing the foreground and the background at the same time.” 2
Doig painted Lapeyrouse Wall (2004) two years after returning to Trinidad. The effects of this move are visible both in its palette, which captures the warm Caribbean light, and in its subject matter: the crumbling wall belongs to Lapeyrouse Cemetery, an 18th-century burial ground in Port of Spain. Named for the man who founded the island’s first sugar estate, the cemetery is a reminder of Trinidad’s colonial history and of the British Empire’s implementation of and dependence on slavery. Loosely delineated, the figure appears both next to and as a part of the wall—perhaps serving as a reminder of the proximity of colonialism’s legacy.
Doig would revisit the wall motif in later works such as House of Flowers (see you there) (2007–2009), in which a lone spectral figure is silhouetted in profile against a stack of black blocks and a wall of yellow bricks. As in Pink Snow, the overlapping forms appear at once decorative and disorienting. Further collapsing the space, Doig painted the words “see you there” at the bottom of the canvas—a reference to his interest in film and, more specifically, the posters he designed for StudioFilmClub, a weekly program he founded in 2003 to bring international film to Port of Spain. “I think my paintings, certainly, are filimic,” 3 he has reflected. But beyond influencing the paintings’ cinematic qualities, film also seems to provide an appealing interpretive frame. As Doig has explained, “I love the idea that the pictures might be films and the viewer could become the director of the film.” 4
Introduction by Jenny Harris, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, 2018
Peter Doig, quoted in Hilke Wagner, “The Fortunate Traveller,” published in Peter Doig: Metropolitain (Cologne: Walther König, 2004), p. 12.
Peter Doig, quoted in, Judith Nesbitt, “A Suitable Distance,” published in Peter Doig (London: Tate Publishing, 2008), p. 11.
Peter Doig, quoted in Hilton Als, “Peter Doig: The Transformer,” The New York Review of Books, June 25, 2015.
Peter Doig, quoted in Richard Schiff, “Incidents,” published in Peter Doig (London: Tate Publishing, 2008), p. 33.
- Introduction
- Peter Doig ( DOYG; born 17 April 1959) is a British painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting White Canoe sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist. In February 2013, his painting, The Architect's Home in the Ravine, sold for $12 million at a London auction. Art critic Jonathan Jones said about him: "Amid all the nonsense, impostors, rhetorical bullshit and sheer trash that pass for art in the 21st century, Doig is a jewel of genuine imagination, sincere work and humble creativity."
- Wikidata
- Q1281272
- Nationalities
- Scottish, English, Canadian, British
- Gender
- Male
- Roles
- Artist, Painter
- Names
- Peter Doig, Peter Marryat Doig
- Ulan
- 500094247
Exhibitions
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Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration
Mar 14–Jul 9, 2012
MoMA
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Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection
Apr 22, 2009–Jan 4, 2010
MoMA
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Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection
Apr 22, 2009–Jan 4, 2010
MoMA
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What Is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection
Jul 7–Sep 17, 2007
MoMA
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Eye on Europe: Prints, Books & Multiples/1960 to Now
Oct 15, 2006–Jan 1, 2007
MoMA
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Peter Doig has
7 exhibitionsonline.
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Peter Doig Pink Snow 1991
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Peter Doig Camp Forestia 1996
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Peter Doig Jetty 1996
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Peter Doig Screaming Cop (Echo Lake) 1998
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Peter Doig Echo Lake 1999
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Peter Doig Untitled (Figure in Mountain Landscape) 1999
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Peter Doig Untitled 2002
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Peter Doig 100 Years Ago 2002
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Fiona Banner, John Bock, Peter Doig, Marcel Dzama, Fred Tomaselli, Various Artists Parkett no. 67 2003
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Peter Doig Gasthof (for Parkett no. 67) 2003
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Peter Doig Pelican 2003
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Peter Doig Pelican Man 2003
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Peter Doig Study for Lapeyrouse Wall 2003
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Peter Doig Lapeyrouse Wall 2004
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Peter Doig Lapeyrouse Wall 2004
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Peter Doig Metropolitan (2004)
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Peter Doig Study for Lapeyrouse Wall II 2004
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Peter Doig Lapeyrouse Wall 2005
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Peter Doig The Wonders of Ski-ing from the series Ex Libris 2007 (originally published 1933)
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Peter Doig House of Flowers (see you there) 2007-09
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Billy Childish, Peter Doig Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire 2010
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Peter Doig Untitled 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled, Large Cricket Player from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Paragrand from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Black & White from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled, Dark Owl from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Owl (Boscoe) from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Corbeaux from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled, Small Cricket Player from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled (Speakers) from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Drunk and Disorderly from an untitled series 2013
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Peter Doig Untitled from an untitled series 2013
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