A Chicago court has ruled that a painting, signed ‘Peter Doige’ which its owner claimed was by Peter Doig is in fact not the work of the Scottish artist. Former Canadian prison official Robert Fletcher said that Doig gave him the painting while serving time in the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre in Ontario in 1976 having been jailed for LSD possession. Doig denied he made the work or that he had ever been to prison. Fletcher said that the artist was disavowing the painting to cover up his secret prison spell. The judge has sided with the artist however having heard from the sister of the real Peter Doige. Or the fake one, we’re not quite sure. Either way, the desertscape work from the 1970s is not by the second most expensive living European artist.
24 August 2016.
