Peter Doig (1959) Cold Dog - Oil On Wood

Peter DOIG (1959) Cold Dog Oil on wood signed lower right, signed, titled and dated March 1985 on the back. Over the past ten years, Peter Doig has become one of the most highly regarded contemporary painters in the world. His large-scale works, with their disturbing universe, where man and nature attempt to understand each other in a palette of saturated colors, have found their audience. We find the Scottish artist at the beginning of his career, in 1985, with this oil on wood Cold Dog, acquired by its current owner for €104,035 at a sale in London on October 15, 2007 (Sotheby's). Today, his works have been sold for more than $10 million on the secondary market and are part of the collections of the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Peter Doig was 26 years old when he painted this painting. The artist, who grew up in Trinidad, West Indies, has just completed his studies at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. The title of this work, written on the back in French, is intriguing, as is this scene showing a wolf warming itself by a fire in a partially destroyed urban landscape, a skull graffiti painted on the wall as if to announce chaos. Against a blue sky tormented by black clouds, green eyes observe the scene. His influences, often mentioned by Doig, are present here with the saturated colors of Henri Matisse, including this beautiful blue, and the swirling lines of Munch. If the wolf appears frightening, the eyes framed by roses could be inspired by Beauty and the Beast, with this flower that both condemns Beauty and could save the monster. The painter's inspiration has always been diverse, ranging from simple souvenirs to postcards and films. So, in 1987, he moved to Canada and saw Sean Cunningham's Friday the 13th, which would be the origin of a series of paintings with mysterious stories, but also a way of transcribing time in paint. Upon his return to London in 1989, this universe followed him. Peter Doig then worked for an opera artistic director and then as a set painter for Tom Berry's horror film The Amityville Curse: an essential experience in the creation of his own universe.