Peter Doig
Blue-chipEgon research · Artist market profile
The market, in context.
Explore Peter Doig’s auction history alongside the exhibitions, collections and gallery relationships behind the market.
Institutional research
Collections & exhibitions
Read holdings, exhibition history and their qualifications in context.
Read the institutional research →
Egon investment scores
Market position
Research updated
Auction record
Work from canoe series, inspired by Friday the 13th film still
Auction highlights
Scroll horizontally if needed →
| Work | Result | Venue and date |
|---|---|---|
| The Pink Lake | $15,800,000 | Christie's, 2025 |
| Ski Jacket (1994) | $19,200,000 (£14.3M) | Christie's London, October 2025 |
| Rosedale (1991) | $28,800,000 | Phillips New York, May 2017 |
2 further auction entries on record for Peter Doig — inside Egon.
Pricing
- Value drivers
- Early 1990s works (especially canoe series, concrete cabins, snowscapes); works with strong provenance; paintings from breakthrough exhibitions
- Works on paper
- $10,000-$100,000+
- Prints editioned
- $1,000-$70,000 depending on edition and subject
- Temporal context
- Market has shown consistent upward trajectory since 2007; nine of top 10 prices achieved in last decade
- Paintings mid level
- $1M-$5M
- Paintings major works
- $5M-$40M for breakthrough period (1990-1996) canvases
Liquidity
- Market stability
- Mature market with consistent demand; weathered 2008 financial crisis and recent market corrections
- Auction frequency
- Regular appearance at major auction houses
- Sell through rate
- 85% in recent sales (2025-2026 database)
Primary market
- Wife gallery
- Parinaz Mogadassi runs Tramps Gallery in New York - supports but does not represent
- Gallery status
- Left Michael Werner Gallery in 2023 after 23 years
- Pricing access
- New works now primarily available through institutional exhibitions or direct from studio
- Recent collaborations
- Collaborative projects with Gagosian (2024 exhibition 'The Street'), institutional shows direct from studio
- Current representation
- Working independently without gallery representation as of 2023
Auction history
Print market
- Record print
- Untitled, Ping Pong Player (monotype, 2011) - £170,000 at Christie's March 2018
- Market trends
- 2024 print turnover £272,500, up from £109,273 in 2019; 63 lots in 2024 vs 39 in 2019; unsold rate improved to 21% from 30%
- Typical range
- £1,000-£5,000
- Popular series
- 100 Years Ago (£3,000-£15,000), Zermatt (£3,000-£6,000 individual, £20,000-£30,000 complete sets)
- Print percentage
- 66% of auction work sold is prints
- Top editioned print
- Alpinist (D2-1A) edition of 25 - £70,000 at Christie's March 2025
All time record
- Date
- November 2021
- Work
- Swamped (1990)
- Notes
- Work from canoe series, inspired by Friday the 13th film still
- Amount
- $39,862,500
- Auction house
- Christie's New York
Market position
- Status
- Blue-chip contemporary painter - consistently ranks among top-selling living artists
- Influence
- Described as inspiring 'post-Doig aesthetic' among emerging painters including Florian Krewer, Justin Caguiat, Arisa Yoshioka, Casey Bolding
- Market depth
- Strong institutional and collector demand; consistent sell-through rates; 85% sell-through in recent auctions
Collector base
Major collectors include César Reyes (psychiatrist, Puerto Rico - one of biggest collectors); Ole Faarup estate (1934-2025); international museum and private collections
- Peer comparison
- Named alongside Jeff Koons, David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat as most expensive living artists
Investment outlook
Trend
Continued institutional recognition (2025 Praemium Imperiale); major exhibitions ongoing; market remains strong despite broader art market corrections
- Strengths
- Museum validation across tier 1 institutions; historical auction records; sustained critical acclaim; scarcity from independent working model
- Considerations
- Lack of gallery representation changes primary market access; print market shows some volatility; works now come to market less frequently
Institutional presence
Research updated
Exhibitions
Upcoming confirmed
- Dates
- Through February 8, 2026
- Notes
- Currently on view with live music programming
- Venue
- Serpentine South Gallery, London
- Exhibition
- Peter Doig: House of Music
Major solo retrospectives
Peter Doig Retrospective
- Venues
- Tate Britain (2008); Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
- Significance
- First large-scale career survey
No Foreign Lands
- Venues
- Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh (2013); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal (2014)
- Significance
- First major exhibition in home country Scotland
Peter Doig
- Venue
- Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2014); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (2015)
- Significance
- Major European touring exhibition
Peter Doig
- Dates
- February-May 2023
- Venue
- The Courtauld Gallery, London
- Significance
- First contemporary artist at Courtauld since redevelopment; new works since return to London
Peter Doig: Reflets du siècle
- Dates
- Late 2023-2024
- Venue
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
- Significance
- Two exhibitions - own works plus curated selection from Orsay collection
Peter Doig: House of Music
- Dates
- October 10, 2025 - February 8, 2026
- Venue
- Serpentine Gallery, London
Significance
Multi-sensory environment combining paintings with music via vintage cinema speakers; Sound Service program with Brian Eno, Dennis Bovell, Linton Kwesi Johnson
Selected group exhibitions
- Venice Biennale (2003, 2015)
- Whitney Biennial 'Day for Night' (2006)
- Carnegie International (2004)
- Documenta XI, Kassel (mentioned in German sources)
- The Triumph of Painting, Saatchi Gallery (2005)
- Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now, Tate Britain (2021)
Publications
Major monographs
- Peter Doig (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series), 2007
- Peter Doig (Rizzoli Classics), 2017
- Peter Doig: Works on Paper, 2009
- Exhibition catalogues
- Comprehensive catalogues for all major retrospectives including Tate Britain 2008, Fondation Beyeler 2014, Courtauld 2023
Museum collections
Tier 1 museums
- Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
- Tate Modern, London
- Tate Britain, London
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gifted monumental work 'Two Trees' 2017)
- Art Institute of Chicago (owns 'Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre')
- Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (owns 'Grande Riviere')
- British Museum, London
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
- National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art
- Dallas Museum of Art
- Collection highlights
- 30 works identified in major museum databases; significant institutional buying 2000s-2020s
International collections
- Fondation Beyeler, Basel
- Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
- Tel Aviv Museum of Art
- Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht
- Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
- Museum Ludwig, Cologne
- Goetz Collection, Munich
- Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Smithsonian Institution
Awards and recognition
- Year
- 1991
- Award
- Whitechapel Artist Prize
- Outcome
- Solo exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery
Blotter
- Year
- 1993
- Award
- John Moores Prize First Prize
- Year
- 1994
- Award
- Turner Prize Nomination
Society for Modern Art, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
- Year
- 2008
- Award
- Wolfgang Hahn Prize
- Value
- €100,000
- Year
- 2017
- Award
- Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award
- Year
- 2025
- Award
- Praemium Imperiale Prize for Painting
Career & Biography
Research updated
Career
Education
- Foundation course, Wimbledon School of Art (1979-1980)
- BA Painting, St. Martin's School of Art (1980-1983)
- MA Painting, Chelsea School of Art (1989-1990)
Studio locations
- Trinidad: Caribbean Contemporary Arts Centre near Port of Spain (2002-2021)
- London: Current studio (2021-present)
Career milestones
- 1991: Won prestigious Whitechapel Artist Prize, solo exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery
- 1993: Won first prize at John Moores exhibition with 'Blotter'
- 1994: Nominated for Turner Prize
- 1995-2000: Trustee of the Tate Gallery
- 2007: White Canoe sold for $11.3M - then auction record for living European artist
- 2008: Won Wolfgang Hahn Prize (€100,000), major retrospective at Tate Britain
- 2017: Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award
- 2025: Praemium Imperiale Prize for Painting
Key relationships
- Close friend and collaborator with Chris Ofili (met at Chelsea School of Art)
- Wife: Parinaz Mogadassi (founder of Tramps Gallery)
- Collaborated with late poet Derek Walcott on print series
Teaching positions
- Professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany (from 2002)
Identity
- Gender
- male
- Full name
- Peter Doig
- Birth date
- April 17, 1959
- Birth place
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Nationality
- British (Scottish)
- Current location
- London (returned 2021 after living in Trinidad 2002-2021)
Artistic context
- Key quote
- I never try to create real spaces—only painted spaces
Working method
Paints from photographs, postcards, film stills, and memory - what he calls painting 'by proxy'; works slowly with layers, scraping, and reworking; not photorealist despite photographic sources
Itinerant childhood
Born Edinburgh; moved to Trinidad age 2-7; Montreal/Toronto age 7-17; Scottish boarding school ages 12-15; formative displacement and lack of belonging
- Biographical influences
- Father was shipping merchant and amateur artist; great-aunt was professional artist; picked up drawing at age 17 working on gas drilling rig
Artistic Profile
Research updated
Style
- Scale
- Often large-scale canvases (many works 6-12 feet); also prolific in works on paper
Palette
Early work: more muted tones, blues, purples, greens; Post-Trinidad (2002+): increasingly bold, vibrant colors; characteristic unexpected color combinations
- Surface quality
- Builds up then scrapes away paint; drips, cracks, and texture integral; can make oil look like watercolor
Visual characteristics
Dreamlike, atmospheric, haunting landscapes; figures often dissolve upon close viewing; layered, complex surfaces; balance between figuration and abstraction
Evolution
Early 1980s
Urban scenes, nightlife, sex and pop culture references; rapid brushwork, cartoony figures; exploring art history with humor (references to Courbet, etc.)
- Mid-late 1980s
- Shift to contemplative landscape; more limited palette; solitary mood emerges
- Late 1990s-2002
- Continued landscape exploration; some critics noted shift away from narrative elements
2002-2021 trinidad
Tropical subjects; richer colors; sound system culture; cemetery imagery; post-colonial themes; figures more prominent; Caribbean contemporary art engagement
1990-1996 breakthrough
Canonical period - concrete cabins, canoe series, Canadian snow scenes; complex layered surfaces; early masterpieces (Swamped, Blotter, Architect's Home in the Ravine, Rosedale)
2021-present return to london
New works shown at Courtauld 2023; continued Trinidad-influenced palette; music integration (House of Music exhibition 2025); recent works include Alpinist, Canal, Bather, lions and Rastafarian imagery
Influences
Historical artists
- Edvard Munch - alienated figures, psychological intensity
- Claude Monet - Impressionist light and atmosphere
- Pierre Bonnard - kaleidoscopic color
- Paul Gauguin - tropical subjects, flat areas of color
- Gustav Klimt - decorative surface
- Caspar David Friedrich - romantic landscapes
- Henri Matisse - color relationships
- Edward Hopper - isolation and atmosphere
- H.C. Westermann
Non visual influences
- Film: Jean Cocteau's Orphée, Friday the 13th, film stills generally
- Music: Dub, reggae, calypso, post-punk, krautrock (Kraftwerk), Augustus Pablo, Lloyd Miller
- Literature: Derek Walcott poetry (subject of print series)
- Popular culture: record album covers, postcards, newspaper clippings, advertisements
Contemporary influences
- Gerhard Richter - approaches to photographic painting
- Sigmar Polke - 1960s Düsseldorf painting
- Marsden Hartley, Max Beckmann, Helene Schjerfbeck (northern painting tradition)
Visual language
- Descriptors
- Uncanny, melancholic, nostalgic, mysterious, hallucinatory, dreamlike, timeless, ethereal, haunting
- Emotional register
- Evocative of psychological states; beauty always possible but never guaranteed; sense of evanescence
- Viewing experience
- Works register in phases like recalling a dream; images shimmer in and out of focus; heightened reality that tests truth of senses
Themes and subjects
Recurring motifs
- Canoes - solitary boats in eerie landscapes (inspired by Friday the 13th film still)
- Concrete cabins - modernist architecture partially obscured by nature
- Snow scenes - memories of Canadian childhood
- Tropical landscapes - Trinidad beaches, jungles, Caribbean light
- Lone figures - often isolated, mysterious, partially obscured
- Reflections in water
- Music and musicians - especially Trinidad sound system culture
Conceptual themes
- Memory and displacement - itinerant childhood creates sense of belonging nowhere
- Tension between nature and built environment
- Time - past merging with present
- Liminal spaces - 'nowhere places' between locations
- Cinematic influence - frozen film stills transformed
- Post-colonial Caribbean identity (Trinidad works)
Movements and periods
Associations
- Magic Realism
- New European Painting
- Contemporary Figurative Painting
- Romantic Landscape tradition (reimagined)
- Historical positioning
- Operating against dominant conceptual art and YBA (Young British Artists) movement of 1990s; championed painting when it was unfashionable
Techniques and mediums
Other mediums
- Oil on linen (especially Trinidad works - uses unprimed linen)
- Distemper on linen
- Works on paper: watercolor, etching, aquatint
- Screenprints, lithographs, digital prints (editions)
- Primary medium
- Oil on canvas
Technical approach
Projects photographs onto canvas as starting point (early lack of drawing skill); paints in layers; scraping and reworking; 'painting by proxy' - mediated through photographic sources
Critical Reception
Research updated
Cultural impact
- Painting revival
- Credited with reshaping discussion around painting in 1990s when medium was considered obsolete
- Broader recognition
- Profile extends beyond art world; featured in Smithsonian Magazine (2008) article on painting revival
- Influence on younger artists
- Post-Doig aesthetic identified in emerging painters; former students include Florian Krewer
Critical reception
- Consensus
- Widely regarded as one of the most important and accomplished contemporary painters of his generation
Critical evolution
- Early 2000s: Some critics (Thad Ziolkowski) questioned if works were 'neither here nor there', lacking epiphany
- Mid-2000s onwards: Consensus solidified around importance to painting's revival
- 2010s-present: Established as defining figure who kept painting relevant during conceptual art dominance
Scholarly attention
Subject of academic analysis; included in art history surveys; PhDdissertations on his work; essays by Richard Shiff and other prominent art historians
Key critics and quotes
- Critic
- Jonathan Jones (The Guardian)
- Quote summary
- Called Doig 'a jewel of genuine imagination, sincere work and humble creativity' amid 21st century art world
- Critic
- Barry Schwabsky (Artforum)
Assessment
Noted evolution from early dreamlike Canadian scenes to more earnest Trinidad work with 'deeper, darker beauty'; praised giving up seductive elements for brooding self-consciousness
- Critic
- Iwona Blazwick (Whitechapel Gallery)
- Quote summary
- Wolfgang Hahn Prize jury: 'Doig's painterly realism leads painting to unexplored territory'
- Critic
- Sheena Wagstaff (Metropolitan Museum)
- Quote summary
- Called Doig 'one of the most important figurative painters of our time'
Publications and media
Media coverage
Consistently featured in major art publications; 2016 lawsuit (successfully defended against false attribution) generated significant press; record-breaking sales widely reported
Major publications
- Artforum (multiple reviews: Barry Schwabsky 2017, Jurriaan Benschop 2014, Anne Prentnieks 2015, Lisa Turvey 2009)
- The Guardian (Jonathan Jones extensive coverage)
- ARTnews (extensive market and exhibition coverage)
- The Art Newspaper (ongoing coverage including 2023 gallery departure)
- The Telegraph (Mark Hudson, Cal Revely-Calder reviews)
- The New Yorker (Calvin Tomkins 2017 profile)
- Vogue (exhibition features)
- Art Review
- Frieze
- JUXTAPOZ
Gallery & Representation
Research updated
Fair presence
- Current
- Limited fair presence due to independent working model; focus on institutional exhibitions
- Historical
- Regular presence at major fairs through Michael Werner Gallery representation
Representation
- Current status
- Independent - no gallery representation since 2023
- Earlier galleries
- Gavin Brown's Enterprise (collaborated for exhibitions); Victoria Miro Gallery, London (1990s)
- Previous representation
- Michael Werner Gallery, New York/London/Beverly Hills (2000-2023, 23 years)
Market strategy
- Post 2023 model
- Working independently to ensure 'transparency in all dealings'; direct studio sales and institutional collaborations
- Institutional focus
- Preference for museum exhibitions over commercial gallery shows; Courtauld, Orsay, Serpentine recent venues
- Gagosian collaboration
- 2024 exhibition 'The Street' at Gagosian Madison Avenue - unique curatorial collaboration, not traditional representation
Geographic reach
- Primary markets
- United Kingdom, United States, Europe
- Strong presence
- London, New York, Germany (due to teaching position in Düsseldorf)
- Emerging interest
- Asia (exhibitions at Faurschou Foundation Beijing 2017, National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo 2020)
Sources & research notes
Egon’s artist research combines historical auction records, recent sales, institutional history, critical reception and gallery information. Researched auction records and auction highlights are identified separately.
Read prices with their work, sale date, currency and stated basis. Egon’s market assessments are distinct from reported auction results.
Reference: Egon, “Peter Doig: Market Intelligence & Investment Profile.”
Research updates by section
These dates show when Egon’s research sections were updated. Source retrieval dates, where supplied above, refer to individual evidence notes.
Ranking updated . Research sections follow their own update dates.
This is what the market knows about Peter Doig. What Egon can also tell you: whether Peter Doig fits your portfolio — based on your existing holdings, budget, and investment timeline.
Get personalized analysisActive market signals
Inside Egon
Signal timeline & strength analysis
Gallery moves, auction records, institutional acquisitions, price milestones — tracked over 90 days
Full signal timeline, strength analysis, and alert configuration for Peter Doig.
Collector demographics & buyer analysis
Geographic distribution, institutional vs. private buyers, collector profiles, and secondary market activity
Who is collecting Peter Doig? Geographic distribution, institutional vs. private buyers, and collector profile analysis.
Personalized acquisition strategy
Optimal entry points, comparable pricing analysis, timing recommendations, and portfolio fit assessment
Personalized acquisition strategy for Peter Doig based on your budget, timeline, and collection goals.
Go deeper with personalized intelligence
You now have Egon's market assessment of Peter Doig. The next question is personal: does this artist belong in your collection? Egon analyzes collection fit based on your aesthetic thesis, existing holdings, budget, and investment goals — delivering acquisition strategies no public index can provide.