Peter Doig’s Country-Rock (Wing-Mirror) painting sells for $15.5M
Oil landscape depicts odd Toronto landmark as seen from the passenger seat of a car
A Peter Doig painting of Toronto's landmark rainbow tunnel has sold at auction in London for almost $15.5 million, the most anyone has ever paid for one of the Scottish painter's work.
Sotheby's did not say who bought the painting, Country-Rock (Wing-Mirror), which captures the colourful underpass near the Don Valley Parkway as seen through an open car window.
The oil painting's price tag — officially $15,489,277.26 when converted into Canadian dollars — makes Doig, who was raised in Canada, one of the world's most expensive living artists.
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Country-Rock (Wing-Mirror) was part of a series of three paintings of Toronto's rainbow tunnel, which together make up the most desirable pieces of Doig's work, Sotheby's said in a news release. The 195 by 270 centimetre landscape had been in the same American collection since it was painted in London in 1999.
"For lovers of Doig, this work enjoys a supreme status," said Cheyenne Westphal, co-global head of contemporary art at Sotheby's.
"We were thrilled to see it set a new benchmark price for the artist this evening, affirming yet again the market's huge appreciation for his work."
Doig, whom the National Gallery of Canada lauds for his "organic and often spontaneous" style that's "somewhere between reality and imagination," has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain and other galleries.
His first major exhibition in Canada was in 2001. He now lives and works in Trinidad.