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Lot Essay
In a brilliant meditation on form and colour, the present work offers an intimate portrait of a pinto horse. An endearing subject for Peter Doig—who is widely celebrated for his enigmatic and illusory landscapes populated by equally dreamlike human figures—the painting has been held in the same private collection since it was made. Translating to ‘dappled’, ‘spotted’, and indeed ‘painted’, the distinct pinto coat, formed of large white, black or brown patches, serves as a rich visual stimulus for the artist. Harnessing the fluid, impasto qualities of his oil medium to render the horse’s unique colouring, Doig smoothly outlines each abstract shape of its pattern with his brush. Painted shortly after the artist returned from London to Trinidad, the Southern Caribbean island where he had spent a significant part of his childhood, Doig’s work of this time is distinctly saturated in translucent washes of nostalgia. Exploring shape, colour, and dimension upon the canvas surface as one might trace the outlines of memory, his painting is powerfully evocative. Another work by Doig, Driftwood (Study) (2002) comes from the same collection, and is lot 119 in the present sale.
Studying at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art in late 1970s and late 1980s respectively, Doig is renowned for his masterful handling of paint. Here, with characteristic sensitivity to the versatility of oil, he explores different variations of dilution and brushwork. The grassy paddock is conjured in layered, vertical strokes of thinned translucent paint, whereas, to the left edge of the canvas, a dark red saddle slung on a wooden stump is rendered in a thick impasto that rests heavily on the picture surface. One can sense Doig’s particular enjoyment capturing his monochromatic pinto horse: the soft contours of its patches, fine detailing of its nostril, its swishing tail. Deftly juxtaposing automatic, sketch-like stipples with flat planes of colour, the present work is a rich demonstration of the artist’s attention to texture and its visual effects. Indeed, establishing a close dialogue between his paint and his subject matter, which weaves between figurative and abstract modes of expression, Doig’s practice builds upon Modernist techniques, recalling the vibrant canvases of Post-Impressionist greats Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh among others.
Wall Eyed Pinto speaks not only to Doig’s technical skill, but to his career-defining engagement with the enigmatic, intangible qualities of memory, recollection and place. The artist’s childhood was peripatetic. Born in Edinburgh in 1959, Doig moved with his family to Trinidad in 1962, and then on to Canada in 1966. The artist recently returned to London, presenting new paintings in a major solo show at The Courtauld Gallery this year. Perceptive to themes of nostalgia, home, and the uncanny, the locations in his canvases are often ambiguous and lone figures are displaced. Here, dramatically silhouetted against its verdant pastoral surroundings, the pinto horse feels dislocated, as though cut and collaged from an alternative reality. Doig is known to lift elements of his paintings from found visual sources—photographs, postcards, newspapers and film stills for example. Our pinto horse is wall-eyed, denoting a rare, pale blue colouration of its eyes. Conjuring a strangely surreal, almost mythical quality, the horse’s presence feels imagined or dreamed. This quality, a signature feature of Doig’s work, is amplified by its striking monochrome coat, which leaves a lingering retinal impression, an afterimage that persists in the mind even after looking away. Vivid and distinct, the present work powerfully simulates the mechanics of remembering.
Studying at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art in late 1970s and late 1980s respectively, Doig is renowned for his masterful handling of paint. Here, with characteristic sensitivity to the versatility of oil, he explores different variations of dilution and brushwork. The grassy paddock is conjured in layered, vertical strokes of thinned translucent paint, whereas, to the left edge of the canvas, a dark red saddle slung on a wooden stump is rendered in a thick impasto that rests heavily on the picture surface. One can sense Doig’s particular enjoyment capturing his monochromatic pinto horse: the soft contours of its patches, fine detailing of its nostril, its swishing tail. Deftly juxtaposing automatic, sketch-like stipples with flat planes of colour, the present work is a rich demonstration of the artist’s attention to texture and its visual effects. Indeed, establishing a close dialogue between his paint and his subject matter, which weaves between figurative and abstract modes of expression, Doig’s practice builds upon Modernist techniques, recalling the vibrant canvases of Post-Impressionist greats Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh among others.
Wall Eyed Pinto speaks not only to Doig’s technical skill, but to his career-defining engagement with the enigmatic, intangible qualities of memory, recollection and place. The artist’s childhood was peripatetic. Born in Edinburgh in 1959, Doig moved with his family to Trinidad in 1962, and then on to Canada in 1966. The artist recently returned to London, presenting new paintings in a major solo show at The Courtauld Gallery this year. Perceptive to themes of nostalgia, home, and the uncanny, the locations in his canvases are often ambiguous and lone figures are displaced. Here, dramatically silhouetted against its verdant pastoral surroundings, the pinto horse feels dislocated, as though cut and collaged from an alternative reality. Doig is known to lift elements of his paintings from found visual sources—photographs, postcards, newspapers and film stills for example. Our pinto horse is wall-eyed, denoting a rare, pale blue colouration of its eyes. Conjuring a strangely surreal, almost mythical quality, the horse’s presence feels imagined or dreamed. This quality, a signature feature of Doig’s work, is amplified by its striking monochrome coat, which leaves a lingering retinal impression, an afterimage that persists in the mind even after looking away. Vivid and distinct, the present work powerfully simulates the mechanics of remembering.