Until April 27th, the Tate Britain in London is representing about fifty large scaled works and a large group of works on paper of the Scottish artist Peter Doig. Doig is a great lover of photography and cinema who likes to paint landscapes in particular using colour in an unusual way and creating magical atmospheres of realistic taste. It is for this reason that many art critics love to define him as a romantic painter. Peter Doig’s peculiar approach to figurative and landscape images is characteristic of what made him world famous. The event is his most powerful in his artistic career, embracing two decades of his creativity from 1989 and composes a considerable series of new paintings finished during the past five years on the island of Trinidad.
Peter Doig is surely not a prolific artist. He works very slowly and produces no more than ten works each year. His paintings could be in progress for a while before a flash of inspiration would allow him to complete it. As he himself describes, he needs to have time to obtain simplicity.
Even though he neglects grand artistic systems, his works are of the most expensive in the world given that he doesn’t like the typical worldliness of contemporary art, and in 2007 even became the most quoted living European artist. Last February Sotheby’s London offered an important oil painting executed in 1990, “White Canoe” valued at 800,000-1,200,000 pounds which sold for 5,732,000 pounds (8,713,897 euros). It was then discovered that this painting was bought by the Ivanishvili’s, Georgian tycoons who have spent a huge sum in contemporary and modern art during the last few years for a museum that should soon open in Kiev.
Sotheby’s made a big deal out of it thanks to Peter Doig. The auction house had acquired “White Canoe” from Saatchi, along with another six paintings by the same artist only a few months prior to what would appear as a record selling investment of 11 million dollars. In May 2007 Sotheby’s New York sold a second painting from the Saatchi collection, “The Architect’s Home in the Ravine” that sold for 3,624,000 dollars (2,674,736 euros) after being valued at 1,200,000-1,800,000 dollars. From June 2006, a good ten pieces surpassed the million dollar mark during the course of the auction. But by investing from between 90 to 150 million dollars, one can acquire excellent small-scale works.
In June 2006 “Iron Hill” was sold by Sotheby’s at 2.1 million dollars; “Orange Sunshine” of 1995, went under the hammer by Sotheby’s London in June 2007 for 1,812,000 pounds (2,689,625 euros) against an estimate of 600-800 million pounds; “Untitled (Silver Pond Painting)” of 2001, went for 2,729,000 dollars (1,868, 282 euros) in November 2007 by the New York Sotheby’s after being estimated for 2,500,000-3,500,000 dollars.
2007 was a truly lucky year for the Scottish star: three of his paintings were handed over in the Evening of Contemporary Art auction in London (at Sotheby’s on the 12th October and then Christie’s on 14th). “Grasshopper” was sold for 468,500 pounds, “Flying Saucer” went for 180, 000 pounds while “Concrete Cabin” went under the hammer at 916,500 pounds. Peter Doig’s works are managed by the Berlin Contemporary Fine Arts gallery and by Victoria Miro of London.

From 5th February to 27th April 2008-03-23
PETER DOIG
At the Tate Britain
Millbank, London, SW1
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7887 8888
www.tate.org.uk

For Peter Doig quotes click here.