PETER DOIG

Early Years

Peter Doig was born in Scotland in 1959. He moved to Trinidad and then Canada during his childhood and he has said that he was “always outside” although not a stereotypical “outdoorsy” person, preferring instead skateboarding and skiing. After school, working on oil rigs and living in hotels, he started to draw. Moving to London in 1979, he studied at St Martins but was also into the post-punk music scene, selling fanzines. He studied at Wimbledon School of Art before gaining his BA at St Martin’s (now Central St Martins) in 1983 and then his MA from Chelsea in 1990. Doig’s work began to be noticed when he appeared in a magazine article written by Gareth Jones, but he also had the support of Dinos and Jake Chapman. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994, he moved back to Trinidad in 2002 before returning to London in 2021.

Peter Doig: Artworks

Peter Doig’s work has evolved over the years: his 1980s and early-1990s paintings are detailed with a thick surface, mixing impasto and glazes. However, his late 1990s and early 2000s work contained more space. Later works evolved further—in 2009 he described starting with thinned-out oil paint and building layers. Brushstrokes aren’t a regular feature of Doig’s work—he drips and pools colour on to the painting surface. He has used photographs and press clippings as inspiration, although has also worked from his own memories. For example, White Canoe (1990–1991) came from a photograph. The painting depicts a white canoe and its reflection as calm amid a turbulent canvas.

Doig is known for landscapes (snowscapes, ski scenes), sometimes evoking memories of his Canadian childhood and at other times referencing his life in Trinidad. His paintings contain familiar elements, yet also have a dreamlike, filmic quality. For example, The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991), shows a fictionalised view of architect Eberhard Zeidler’s modernist home, which is partially obscured by white lines crossing the top of the canvas.

He drips and blots

• 1990’s Grasshopper gives us the viewpoint of an insect existing at ground level. Three equally spaced bands suggest the composition of the earth: sky, land and earth beneath the surface.
• In Echo Lake (1998), the painting becomes more blurry as viewers come closer to the canvas, an abstraction effect that Doig has said was inspired by Pollock and Velázquez, “not making reality, but a suggested reality”.
• Painting for a Poet and Rain in the Port of Spain (both 2026) are just two of a collection of works featuring lions against vibrant backgrounds, echoing his time in Trinidad where Doig saw the Lion of Judah painted on walls and in other places.

Awards

• Whitechapel Artist Prize (1991)
• Prix Elliette von Karajan (1994)
• Wolfgang Hahn Prize of the Society for Modern Art, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2008)
• Praemium Imperiale laureate, Japan (2025)

Peter Doig: Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Peter Doig at the Maison La Roche, Paris (2026)
• House of Music, Serpentine South, London (2025)
• Peter Doig, The Courtauld, London (2023)
• Peter Doig, Reflets du siècle/Reflections of the Century, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2023)
• Peter Doig, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2020)
• Peter Doig, Paintings, Michael Werner Gallery. London (2019)
• Peter Doig: Cabins and Canoes, Faurschou Foundation, Beijing (2017)
• No Foreign Lands, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, Montreal (2013)
• Peter Doig Retrospective, Tate Britain (2008)

Selected Group Exhibitions

• Zeitmaschine Balthus: Eine Berliner Sammlung, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (2022)
• Life Between Islands, Caribbean-British Art 1950s—Now, Tate Britain (2021)
• Summer Exhibition 2020, Royal Academy, London (2020)
• Peindre la nuit, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2018)
• Forces in Nature, Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2015)
• Peter Doig and Stephen Hough collaboration at Westminster Cathedral, London (2009)
• The Whitney Biennial: Day for Night, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006)
• Twelve Stars, Barbican Centre, London (1993)

Further reading

• A 2025 article from Ocula about Peter Doig’s use of sound during his House of Music exhibition at Serpentine South
• 2006 interview with Peter Doig from Border Crossings magazine
• 2011 interview from Purple Fashion reproduced on the Michael Werner website
• 2020 interview, reproduced on the Michael Werner website

Peter Doig FAQs

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