Scottish Artist Peter Doig in Bizarre Lawsuit: Said "Nice Painting, But Not By Me"
Exciting news has come up recently that deals with an artist. A bizarre turn of events saw a celebrated artist confessing that it wasn't him who painted one of his painting. And it is just beginning as the news get more perplexing as you delve deeper.
Caption: The painting which created controversy in Chicago.
Source: nytimes.com
Cited as the hottest asset of art fraternity, Peter Doigand's works sell at more than $25million.
The controversy was ignited after being sued by Robert Fletcher, a former Canadian corrections officer. Robert had stated that he bought a painting from Peter when he was a teen.
Caption: Peter Doig at Scottish national gallery.
Source: lindapittwood.org
Fletcher's Claim
Caption: Robert Fletcher, who has sued Doig.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Fletcher had claimed that he was friend with Doig when he was working on a prison farm in Thunder Bay Correction Center, Ontario in 1975. And then there was a sale of a desert landscape painting for just $100. Fletcher said that he bought it hoping it might get a kid out of crime’s world.
Fletcher also said that the poster hung being the pride of his wall until five years ago when his friend opened about Doig being famous. Robert stated that he was shocked whenever he watched an interview of Doig on YouTube and reminded of a boy he met 35 years ago when Doig was in Jail.
That painting included various hallmarks as that of Doig's painting including a log poking out from a lake and white lichen on a tree bark, Fletcher added. Moreover, it is indeed signed ‘Pete Doige 76’.
“I am 100 percent convinced that this is the man and that this is the painting I own,” Mr. Fletcher said in an interview.
Whenever prints of the canvas were sent to the painter Doig, he denied it saying it wasn’t painted by him.
“I said, ‘Nice painting,’” he recalled in an interview. “‘Not by me.’”
Fletcher disagreed with comments of Doig and sued him dragging Doig to the court and setting one of the bizarre cases of today.
Doig's defense:
Peter Doig, who is Scottish, admitted he spent some of his teenage days in Canada and said he took LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) which is drug commonly referred to as acid, is sold on the streets in liquid, tablet and capsule form.
But he denies himself painting before 1979 and also said he was never even near Thunder Bay.
“I did not begin to paint on canvas until late 1979. (Before that, I had done some pencil and ink drawings on paper),” he said in court papers.
“If I had painted that painting when I was 16, I would admit it,” Doig admitted in court papers.
Doig or Doige: the Same person or the different one?
Caption: ID card of Peter Doige who died in 2012 and is indeed a different person.
Source: dailymail.com
Doig and his lawyers, however, has found the real artist, a man named Peter Edward Doige who died in 2012. Edward’s sister said he attended Lakehead University; same university Fletcher mentioned in his court papers. His sister also said he was in Thunder Bay and painted the painting which created this controversy.
“I believe that Mr. Fletcher is mistaken and that he actually met my brother, Peter, who I believe, did this painting,” the sister, Marilyn Doige Bovard, said in a court declaration
Bovard has also said that painting’s desert scene was that of Arizona where her mother moved after divorce, and his brother did spend time there. Moreover, prison’s former art teacher recognized the painting and said he watched Edward paint the painting making a case more interesting. What do you think?
