Peter Doig

Peter Doig – Painting studies in London; difficult early years

Peter Doig was born in Edinburgh on 17 April 1959. He did not spend his early childhood in rainy Scotland – his family home for generations – but in the sunny Caribbean. Doig’s parents had moved there one year after his birth, and it would not be the last: with no more than three years spent in one place, his early years were characterised by frequent house moves, attending nine different schools in the process. It was in London, where he lived from 1979, that Peter Doig found his way to art. His initial plan to train as a stage designer was rejected in favour of the Wimbledon Art School and the St Martin’s School of Art where he studied painting and eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Although the 1980s saw a returned interest in figurative painting, Peter Doig did not have the opportunity to present his early work in an exhibition.  

One of the most important contemporary artists in the world

Peter Doig did not let these difficult beginnings get him down and he continued his studies at the Chelsea School of Art, obtaining a Master of Arts whilst working alongside as a dresser at the English National Opera. In the years that followed, he made a name for himself in the art world and even sat on the governing body of the London Tate Gallery from 1995 to 2000. In 2002, he moved with his wife and five children back to the Caribbean where he worked with his fellow artist Chris Ofili, followed by a position as teaching professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 2005 to 2012. By this time, prices for Peter Doig’s works had reached dizzying heights and whilst he did not belong to the highest paid, he was certainly one of the most important artists in the world. This status triggered greed however, and in 2016, Doig had to prove in a legal dispute that a work allegedly painted by him during a prison sentence was a forgery. The artist was able to certify that he was only 16 years at the time in question and at school in Toronto. The value of the painting, previously estimated at several million, then plummeted, leaving the deposed collector enraged. 

Innovative compositions against all conventions

Peter Doig’s inspirations are diverse. The artist himself refers to great names from all eras of art history: Contemporary painters such as Georg Baselitz, Francesco Clemente or Sigmar Polke play just as great a role as Max Beckman, Pablo Picasso, Courbet and Goya. Equally varied are the sources from which he assembles his works, drawing from an almost never-ending archive of various self-made photographs, music and art themes. In doing so, Doig does not simply use these materials as templates, but merely as an impulse provider, a kind of cue with which he hits his thoughts and ideas like balls on the billiard table and allow them to roll around in different directions in their own dynamic. The results are unusual, magical colour combinations in their own aesthetic which refuse any normative categorisation – just like the artist’s nature.