Peter Doig - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 24, 2018 | Phillips

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 24 April 2018

  • Catalogue Essay

    There is the joy and life of Matisse or of Gauguin here, albeit tangled with the darkness and contemplation of Rothko and Tuymans. In the words of Curator Stéphane Aquin, ‘Doig embraces everything, soaks it all in and churns it out in a way that is his alone.’

    Although most known for his monumental abstract landscapes, Doig here favors tightly cropped compositions presenting solitary figures in scenes of varying shades of complexity. In Beach (Cricket) the mood is lively; a batsman taking guard in front of a body board which doubles as a makeshift wicket. The scene is jostling and alive – but the figure is unnaturally blended into the background, his face hollow and gaunt with foliage encroaching from the left and above like long limbed fingers ready to pluck him into the undergrowth. In Paragrand 2 a ghostly form stands sentinel, surveying a vast expanse of dark open water - ambiguity is abundant, with the observer left to unpack what has just occurred or what is about to take place.

    These contemplative scenes are emboldened by a warmer, and at times more electric, color palette than Doig's dark inward-looking work of the mid-1990s. The use of a painterly aquatint wash adds a translucence that blends the boundaries of past and present to produce scenes of dreamlike isolation. Gone is the weighty, dense layering of his early work and in its place we are left with a pale surface and a soft etched line that provides a hint of form and structure in which the spectator invests both their personal and shared experiences. While intertwined with their surroundings these characters remain detached and static. Reality and artifice are as fluid as the swirling watery backgrounds that threaten to engulf their protagonists.

  • Artist Biography

    Peter Doig

    Scottish • 1959

    Peter Doig is widely considered one of the most renowned contemporary figurative painters. Born in Scotland and raised in Trinidad and Canada, Doig achieved his breakthrough in 1991 upon being awarded the prestigious Whitechapel Artist Prize and receiving a solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.

    Doig draws on personal memories and source imagery in his pursuit of exploring the slippage between reality, imagination and memory through painting. The material properties of paint and expressive possibilities of color thereby serve to approximate the foggy, inarticulate sensation of remembering. His practice maintains a thin and balanced line between landscape and figure, superimposing photographic imagery and memories, both real and imagined.

    View More Works

61

Peter Doig

Cricket (Paragrand); Black & White; Towards Venezuela; Cave Boat Bird (Saut D'Eau); Corbeaux; Maracas (Speaker Box); Owl (Boscoe); Drunk & Disorderly (Always in Custody) Mighty Sparrow; Sea Lots; Owl in a Neem Tree - Boscoe's House; Paragrand 2; and Beach (Cricket)

2013
The complete series of 12 etchings and aquatint in colors, on various wove papers, with full margins.
largest I. 28 3/4 x 15 1/2 in. (73 x 39.4 cm)
S. 33 x 19 in. (83.8 x 48.3 cm)
smallest I. 10 x 14 in. (25.4 x 35.6 cm)
S. 15 3/8 x 18 3/4 in. (39.1 x 47.6 cm)
All signed, dated and numbered 14/20 in pencil (there were also 5 artist's proofs), published by Two Palms Press, New York, all framed.

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Contact Specialist
Kelly Troester
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Modern
+1 212 940 1221
ktroester@phillips.com

Cary Leibowitz
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Contemporary
+1 212 940 1222
cleibowitz@phillips.com

Kip Eischen
Specialist
+1 212 940 1332
keischen@phillips.com

General Enquiries
+1 212 940 1220

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 24 April 2018