Biography
Born in 1959 in Edinburg, Scotland, Peter Doig is a contemporary painter living and working in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He is best known for his dreamlike paintings of lakes, canoes, cabins, forests, and more.
The contemporary painter is one of Britains most important artists. His illustrious career is build upon an extensive body of paintings drenched in an enigmatic aura. Doig’s source material for his paintings is varied, most often drawing inspiration from photographs, films, etchings or personal memories.
In 1962, at the age of three, the Doig family moved to Trinidad, before moving to Canada in 1966. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Scottish painter returned to the United Kingdom to complete his MA in London. At the turn of the millennium, Doig established his permanent studio in Trinidad’s capital, where he continues to reside and work in close contact with Britain.
Peter Doig developed a distinctively figurative visual language. His paintings refer most often to personal memories from his childhood in Canada. In an expressive manner, Doig takes on the selected found source material and layers his landscapes formally, and conceptually.
Career Facts
His unique style receives recognition from the early 1990s and onwards. Doig would exhibited at major institutions, encompassing the Tate Britain, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburg, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Fondation Beyeler in Basel or the Louisiane Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek.
Peter Doig would participate in the 56th Venice Biennale, opening the Fondazione Bevilacque La masa. Further, on the secondary market his works have been sold for seven up to eight figures at auction. Doing so, Doig features in internationally reputed public and private collections, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Tate Modern in London, the British Museum n London, or the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).
Peter Doig is included in our list of the top 25 contemporary figurative British painters, and is one of the most important representatives of New European Painting.
Books
For further reading on Peter Doig we highly recommend the following titles:
- Peter Doig (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series). Phaidon: 2007.
- Peter Doig (Rizzoli Classics). Rizzoli: 2017.
Artworks
Last Updated on August 1, 2023