Why every Doig should have its day
Offering Peter Doig’s 1991 painting The Architect’s Home in the
Ravine for £14million-£18million next week, Sotheby’s describes him as “Britain’s most expensive living artist”.
In 1992, shortly after Scottish-born Doig left art school, accountancy firm Arthur Andersen bought this painting from him for £1,500. By 2002, Doig’s reputation had grown but, following its involvement in the Enron scandal, the accountant had to sell its painting, whereupon it zoomed over estimate, selling to Charles Saatchi for £314,650.
The piece was one of several by Doig to be included by Saatchi in his 2005 exhibition The Triumph of Painting, a celebration of the genre that also included works by Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans. Two years after it closed, he sold seven Doigs to Sotheby’s for about £6million (in the region of £860,000 each), which was a goodly profit.
Yet, within a few months, Sotheby’s was selling them for considerably more. White Canoe (1991) sold for £5.6million pounds to Georgian businessman Boris Ivanishvili, and The Architect’s Home in the Ravine for £1.8million to a collector in New York.
Asian buyers joined the global clamour and, as prices have risen, shortterm investment seems to have taken over from love of art. In 2013, for instance, The Architect’s Home sold again for £7.6million, and three years later for £11.3million, to an anonymous buyer who had guaranteed the price at Christie’s. Now that buyer has a guarantee from Sotheby’s that the painting will fetch at least £14 million.
Next week, Christie’s is also offering Doig, in this case two paintings belonging to the Canadian philanthropist Donald Sobey. These tell a slightly different story from the one above. Sobey bought them in 2006 for a combined £1.1million and now they are estimated to bring upwards of £6.4 million.
But here, rather than selling in the name of a quick turnover, Sobey’s profit will go towards encouraging artistic endeavour. He bought one of the paintings at a fundraiser for the Whitechapel Gallery, and is selling it and the other he owns next week to raise funds to show young Canadian artists abroad.