Additional Images

Provenance:

Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art, New York, NY
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Well known for his large landscape paintings and mesmerizing portraits, Peter Doig could be described as a son of the Commonwealth. (1) Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he spent his first years in Trinidad before moving to Canada. Doig spent his early years raised between the Baie-D'Urfé, Montreal’s West Island and Toronto between 1966 and 1978, before settling in London in 1979. He now lives and works in Trinidad.

Doig prefers to paint inside his studio. His photographic practice, which helps the artist to construct his paintings, is all the more important, though examples are rare to the market. The two images “Through the Woods” and “Across the Lake” are two of the 12 scarce examples of this practice. “Across the Lake” is notable for its nod to his Canadian roots.

“Through the Woods,” produced in 2002, has deep significance for the artist. This photograph is one of the images that form the source of the “Boiler House” (2) painting and can be considered as a part of his “Concrete Cabins” series. This image features Le Corbusier’s abandoned Unité d’Habitation at Briey-en-Fôret in Northern France. Doig first visited this Unité d’Habitation at Briey in 1991 before he began working on his Concrete Cabins for the next decade, making this production a milestone in his career. Subtitled “Through the Woods,” it reflects Doig’s intent: “I was trying to depict the movement of an eye – not to paint a still. The eye never sees a “still.”” (3)

(1) https://canadianart.ca/features/peter-doig-continental-drifter/
(2) The painting “Boiler House” was sold at Christies in 2020 for GBP 13,895,500: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6285717
(3) R. Shiff, ‘Incidents’, in Peter Doig, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2008, p. 39