Judge poised to decide if painting is by famed living artist
A federal judge in Chicago was set to issue a verdict on Tuesday in a peculiar civil trial over acelebrated Scottish-born artist’s insistence that he did not paint a landscape work that was once valued at more than $10 million.
Some of Peter Doig’s paintings have even sold for more than $20 million.
The owner of the disputed work, a prison official from Canada, sued in a US court for millions in damages after its projected sales price plummeted when 57-year-old Doig said he did not paint it.
Robert Fletcher, from Ontario, maintains that the painting of a desert landscape with giant red rocks and a receding pond, which he paid $100 for in the 1970s, is by Doig. If it is not, one filing by Fletcher’s lawyers says, “it is essentially worthless’’.
Authenticity disputes typically arise long after an artist dies, not, as in this case, when the artist is still living and flatly denies a work is his. Such a dispute making it all the way to trial has drawn interest from the wider art world.
After a week of testimony at the bench trial, US District Judge Gary Feinerman was due to announce his verdict. The suit was filed in Chicago because one auctioneer who had expressed an interest in selling the painting is based there.
Fletcher contends he bought the painting from Doig in about 1976, when he says Doig was serving time on an LSD possession charge in Canada’s Thunder Bay Correctional Center, where Fletcher was employed.
Long after he bought it, a friend saw the painting at Fletcher’s home and said it appeared to be by an internationally acclaimed artist.
Doig, who now lives in Trinidad, said he did not begin using the type of linen canvas used for the work until late 1979. He also told the court he was never imprisoned in Ontario or anywhere else in Canada.
Such a dispute would seem to be easily resolved through documentation, although Canadian prison and school records from thattimeweresometimesimprecise,lawyersinthecasehavesaid.
A Canadian woman who was a key witness for Doig told the court the painting was by her late brother, whose name was Peter Doige, with an “e’’, like the signature on the disputed work.
Fletcher’s lawyers suggest Doig is disavowing the painting because, if Fletcher is right, it would link him to prison in his youth.