Peter Doig

The following two lots represent two small canvases from either end of the 1990s by one of the most inventive painters working today, Peter Doig. Each work would appear to offer a small insight into the way that he paints through the many devices he uses in his major large scale works. Ever since he graduated from Chelsea Art School in 1990, his apparently traditional landscape compositions have been characterised by a restless plundering of art historical styles and photographic and film images. In these two works, an insight is provided into the different poles between which he operates. In Lot 127, Driveway, Doig depicts a directly figurative painting, portraying a man meandering up an unidentified, standardised driveway. Probably painted from a photograph, the interesting aspect of this work is the sense of perspective that emerges. Across the panorama of this painting, the path is cut from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner and we find the figure walking into the foreground with the path tailing out behind him. This compositional device has reappeared in a number of Doig’s recent works, most noticeably in Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre (2000) (Fig. 1). Meanwhile, in Lot 128, Untitled, Doig’s interest is in the manipulation of the material of paint. Following his successive application of thin veils of diluted oil paint to create a chromatic atmosphere of drama he has applied a thick network of white paint with a palette knife to set up a dynamic friction between the layers which were previously used in his monumental work, The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991) (Fig. 2).