This garage sale-worthy painting would be worth millions if it were by famed artist Peter Doig. But it isn't, says Doig. So its owners are suing him for interfering with their ability to sell it.
The owner, a former corrections officer who said he knew Doig while working in a Canadian detention facility, said the famous painter created the work as a youthful inmate there. His suit contends that Doig is either confused or lying and that his denials blew up a plan to sell the work for millions of dollars.
Doig says he was never anywhere near the detention facility in Thunder Bay, would have been only 16 at the time, and that his lawyers tracked down the real artist, Peter Doige ( with an 'e') who died recently. Doige signed the work—with an 'e'—and his family reports that he served time in Thunder Bay.
He died in 2012, but his sister said he had attended Lakehead University, served time in Thunder Bay and painted. "I believe that Mr. Fletcher is mistaken and that he actually met my brother, Peter, who I believe did this painting," the sister, Marilyn Doige Bovard, said in a court declaration.
The prison's former art teacher recognized a photograph of Bovard's brother as a man who had been in his class and said he had watched him paint the painting, according to the teacher's affidavit.
The plaintiff got the judge to bring it to trial, though, meaning it'll be very expensive for Doig (without an e) irrespective of who gets paid.
