Peter Doig sued for disavowing 40-year-old painting
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
>Mr. Doig and his lawyers say they have identified the real artist, a man named Peter Edward Doige. 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. She said the work’s desert scene appeared to show the area in Arizona where her mother moved after a divorce and where her brother spent some time. She recognized, she said, the saguaro cactus in the painting.
>The prison’s former art teacher recognized a photograph of Ms. 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."
I'm looking at the paintings of Peter Doig but I have a hard time finding something that looks like the painting of Peter Edward Doige. The strokes, technique, use of color. They are all different.
Are there any other pictures of that other artist? Maybe I'm missing something. The closest resemblance seems to be the name.
I suppose the next step is for an artist to "authenticate" works s/he couldn't possibly have created and which aren't even in question.
Related, lots of artists make forgeries of their own work.
The more I look at it, the more I find the whole modern art ecosystem similar to bitcoin: abstrusely useless work arbitrarily attributed value by consensus, used for portable and state-independent storage of money.
I can't recommend 'Modern Art' highly enough. It's a card game by Reiner Knizia in which the players bid up the value of art works by various fictional artists. It's a classic and a firm family favourite of ours.
There really is no difference in cartoons and traditional art in the sense that both are essentially works of formulaic conception. Cartoons make the formula simple and explicit, whereas in traditional painting the formulas are a bit more complex.
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions/1...
Because the person who bought the painting is losing millions of dollars.
I'm surprised this has gone to court. Surely there must be easier ways of resolving the identity of the artist who painted this.
But the owner of this painting isn't happy with that, and wants to appeal to authorities. At some point, courts are the authority you reach.
I noticed the extra "e" on the painting too. Either that is common for Peter to sign, he changed his name to drop the "e", or he forgot how to spell his own name when he was 17. Or someone forged his name as a signature onto the painting but didn't know how to spell "Doig" and didn't bother to look it up hoping they could pass the painting off for millions of dollars.
People have a history of scamming for a personal profit. Throwing some artist's name on a painting when their paintings are worth millions, claiming they painted it decades ago, and trying to sell it for millions isn't too far-fetched of a scam. Maybe the artist doesn't remember 40 years ago and just says "Yeah, sure, whatever. I painted that 40 years ago." and you just made yourself $8,000,000 for paying someone down the street $80 for a painting.
It's just a different man from Peter Doig.
It's not a "forgery" made after Peter Doig became famous, there was no purposeful deceit here; it's simply another painting from another person who happens to have a similar name. It's coincidence.
I'm not sure why you so quickly cross that idea out when there are millions of dollars on the line. I'm sure if Doig's paintings were worthless this case wouldn't be seeing the light of day. There is a plausible reason for purposeful deceit in trying to pass Doige's painting off as Doig's painting so the owner could profit millions.
If the painting was completely worthless I'd be inclined to believe that there isn't a chance in hell of purposeful deceit going on because there wouldn't be motivation to do so.
Yes or no please.
I must say that it's one of the most remarkable coincidences I've heard of.
The prisons former art teacher also claims to recognize Doige (with an E) as a former student and claims to remember him painting a painting at least very similar to the one in question. The owner of the painting also claims that the person he bought the painting off of joined the Seafarers International Union shortly after he bought the painting off of him and the Seafarers have a record of a Peter Doige during that time, but not a Peter Doig.
>The retired corrections officer, Robert Fletcher, 62, said he bought the painting for $100 from a man named Pete Doige (spelled with an e), whom he met in 1975 in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
In short, no.
Unless of course the original price they paid for the painting was millions of dollars. I doubt that, given they bought it off of a 17-year-old fresh out of prison.
By the time the case is over, they'll probably be in the negative. Pure sunk cost fallacy.
The retired corrections officer, Robert Fletcher, 62, said he bought the painting for $100 from a man named Pete Doige (spelled with an e), whom he met in 1975 in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
But that's beside the point. If it's worth $Xm, it can be used as collateral for a loan. And it's probably also insured for a certain amount.
> If it's worth $Xm, it can be used as collateral for a loan
It is worth only that much if it is authentic. The "if" is pretty big it seems.
This is an example of the endowment effect (fear of losing value that one perceives to already have), not sunk cost. Sunk cost would be if they continue the trial based on the amount of money they have already spent in fees, as opposed to the money they believe they can recoup later.
(Even that isn't necessarily sunk cost, because legal fees can be covered by the losing party in egregious cases, though that's unlikely here).
Economically, there's little difference.
There's a difference economically, because the derivative of marginal utility with respect to income is (generally) negative. In other words, utility is concave with respect to the origin[0].
This makes a difference because, in many circumstances, people are more willing to insure against loss than they are to insure against gain.
It also makes difference legally, as well as financially, because assets can be used to collateralize loans, etc.
[0](That's the first derivative of marginal utility, which is the second derivative of the income-utility function).
But how will that make a difference legally in this court case ?
Sure.. many economic models make this simplifying assumption. But each man defines his own utility functions, by their very nature.
In this case, one would expect the artist himself to be the most credible expert... But apparently someone disagrees.
The only money he's "missing" is theoretical money that might exist if it turns out the painting is actually by Doig. Right now, there's no damages, and it's ridiculous that the judge accepted this case.
By that logic I should be suing the lottery because I lost millions of dollars when my numbers weren't picked.
Some 16 year old kid paints something, figures it's worth $100 and sells it for that amount. 40 years later it's now worth ~25 million dollars. The original creator never promised that value to the buyer. On the very remote chance that Peter Doig loses the case, what could he realistically owe? The buyer still has exactly what they paid for, and nothing less. The buyer didn't buy the painting with the expectation that it would someday be worth millions. I can't go out and buy stock and sue the company if it doesn't give me a 250,000:1 return on investment.
But if you buy stock which explodes in value - even if you didn't expect its value to go up - you'd expect to be able to sell it at the market value as genuine stock, no?
No, he has now a less credible work attributed to Doig. Credibility is worth money.
I can't go out and buy stock and sue the company if it doesn't give me a 250,000:1 return on investment.
You can if the stock was already worth 250000:1 and then the CEO made allegedly false claims that crashed the price.
Anyway, I think all damages should be capped at the original price point, 100$, even in the absurd case the judge sides with the buyer.
The "intrinsic" value may be so, but the market value is whatever people are willing to pay for it, and that counts too.
In other words, you've just swept a messy question under a rug and acted like we'd all be smarter if we just called the mess "a rug" and ignored the details. Economists talk like that because they don't care about the art (they care about economic abstractions.) But you can't think like that if you want to answer questions about art, because those abstractions break down if you do.
Assuming he's actually the author, he's in a way "defaming the painting".
No, but if you bought stock in a tiny startup that later increase 250,000:1 you can sue the company if they claim that the stock you claim to own isn't valid any more. That was basically half the plot of that Facebook movie they made.
Not really.
> I would have a genuinely hard time proving my whereabouts 4 years ago, let alone 4 decades.
Its a civil case, and the standard of proof on either side is just a "preponderance of the evidence" -- that is, better evidence than the other side has. Its not proof in any kind of absolute sense.
And the judge, in ruling the case had to go to trial, seemed to think Doig had pretty strong proof, just not so indisputable as to make a trial unnecessary.
There's a big gap between getting to trial and winning.
Think about it: if this sets precedent, anyone with enough money who dislikes you for any reason can ruin you by filing a bogus lawsuit about something you putatively did a few decades ago. Sure, in theory you could eventually win based on preponderance of the evidence. In practice, unless you're a multimillionaire like Doig, the legal costs will bankrupt you before that.
Still think it was okay for the judge to send this to trial?
Is he supposed to owe the difference in sale price between if he painted it, and if he didn't?
Is he just supposed to acknowledge it publicly? If so, is that really the best use of the courts? Force someone to admit something that, in the end, has no bearing in the real world?
At any rate, my freedom of speech definitely covers both cases.
If you do not follow the courts order, it could be charge of civil contempt, which could be jail time until you promise to no longer ignore the courts orders and/or could include fines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint
Popehat has discussed prior restraint many times. Sometimes judges get away with it, sometimes they don't, and often Popehat themselves has to make the difference.
Presumably the damages are being sought not for affecting the value of the painting, but for ruining the sale.
I don't see why the guy deserves damages on the order of the value of the painting though - if it's a true Doig, he can still sell the painting for the same amount (probably more given the spectacle around it), and the only loss would be the time wasted in setting up the sale.
Is it? I mean, if you are a true arts collector, there will always be a taint on this painting now. Everyone will know the story, and there would always be a sense it could be a fake...
Heck, even if the guy loses it is now a famous painting, that may add to its value alone.
If Doig wins he could buy it, paint ON it and sell it, that would rub it in!
Damages should be limited to the sale price, not fluctuating market value. What if a painting loses its value because the author does something disgraceful - can the buyer sue the painter for damages? Should all painters be careful about their public standing or anything they do that might affect the market valuation of their work, on threat of lawsuit from their buyers?
The buyer should have exercised due diligence and obtained proof of authorship 40 years ago. He only bought the painting itself, with no paperwork. So that's what he has now, just a painting, with no proof. He has exactly what he paid for.
First world disputes. Not enough gold and diamonds in this world for people to spend their money on something futile. They need to create new "rare commodities", more tulips. Little to do with art.
I think the man is a genius. I think his paintings are...well...the paintings speak for themselves, like Mr. Newman says.
Actually I am less appaled by modern art than by the exercise of using random painting as a form of commodity to store value. Like keeping some paintings in a safe like if it was a gold bar.
In a way everyone likes going shopping. What people like is spending too much money, not so much that they ruin themselves but enough that it still hurts. That's why people who cannot afford luxury products will still buy something small in a luxury shop.
But how do you get that satisfaction when you have a billion in your bank account?
Comes Mr Artist, or often Mr Art Dealer (or both) who will create a new rare commodity for you. Art is good, you don't have to justify it. In fact any critic of art is an uneducated idiot who lacks imagination and sensitivity.
So Mr Art Dealer will sell you a painting for a few dozen millions, just enough that it still hurts you and provides you with the satisfaction to do shopping.
I am not a socialist but it does feel like there is too much money in the system...
These require some (though not necessarily all) of the features of money: utility/value, portability, indestructibility, homogeneity, divisibility, stability, cognizability.
What fine arts offer is (relative) indestructabilty (they don't simply fall apart hanging on a wall), they have a high creation cost -- workfactor, and particularly if of a dead artist, cannot be created again, though that depends on being able to detect forgeries. Art lacks homogeneity and divisibility, but with auctions it is relatively liquid and can be recognized ("cognizability") as a thing having value.
These aren't wealth themselves -- the value is imbued by the market. But they are vehicles for moving wealth.
Say, like stock options or Bitcoin.
Now, if we were really getting down to it, I would argue there is no "intrinsic" value for gold (or anything else). It's only worth what value different people may assign to it, which depends on entirely on the historical, cultural, and technological context in which we live, and varies greatly from person to person.
Sure, there are some aspects or properties of objects for which there is relatively high amounts of agreement about the valuation, however that doesn't make those properties or their valuations "intrinsic". And of course, there will never be 100% agreement about anything.
That's not (necessarily) a trick question. I've been digging at the matter, and there's considerable dispute. W.F. Lloyd, 1833, states that "all value is relative", with Smith and Jevons making similar statements in their own works.
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/%7Eecon/ugcm/3ll3/lloyd/v...
There's also the question of whether we're talking about any of three attributes, and how comprehensively those are defined:
1. Cost using the definition that all costs are opportunity costs (Krugman, Economics, 2008).
2. Price, here meaning market exchange price or what Smith termed exchange value.
3. Value, which is to say, the utility, affinity, preference, or usefulness to the owner, which Smith termed use value.
Market value (price) often bears only a very loose relationship to cost or value. See water/diamonds paradox, externalities, or environmental services and their value, cost, and price.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/48rd02/cost_va...
While I may purchase a lesser shirt from a known brand when a superior one was at the same price from a street shop, I may be justified in that choice because I cannot know in advance that the better shirt is as durable. I may even purchase an Arduino when a cheaper Chinese replica has the same specs, in order to contribute to their R&D.
Of course, there will be some to knowingly spend on lesser products for fame's sake. But I'm not convinced this is the case here. Firstly, the owner may have been told he could make a fortune, and spent more than he could afford hoping to make that money back tenfold. Secondly, some markets act as implicit international currencies, such as gold, and tangible art. This is similar to owning a forged €500 bill.
For instance
The 10 most expensive guitars ever sold
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/02/11/the-10-most-e...
Well that would be simple blackmail.
The story, as I remember reading it, was that a dealer approached Picasso with some drawings and asked him to authenticate them. "All fake.", he said. A friend who observed this had his doubts -- they looked genuine enough to him. He gave one of his own Picassos to the dealer and asked him to try that one.
"Fake.", said Picasso. The friend said "But Pablo, I saw you draw that myself! You gave it to me with your own hands!". Picasso's reply: "Anyone can do a fake Picasso. I sometimes do them myself."
No, that's crazy. No one would ever agree to such a scheme. [/s]
I hope Doig gets suitable compensation for this waste of time.
5 millions for damage? So if Peter Doig was forced to admit ownership, he would have to pay 5 millions? And if he won, he would still have to pay 5 millions because his word caused the evaporation of the presumed value of the fake?
If it takes weighing the relative evidence on both sides, no matter how big the imbalance there is, that's what a trial is for.
P.S. Funny thing, nobody actually cares about the painting itself, how good/bad it is etc, kinda shows top-art industry state...
From that PR perspective it might make sense to actually pay $5M in damages in order to attract even more attention and sell the paintings on that hype.
PRO:
- Enable changing of minds without being shackled to former identity?
CON:
- Now a statement that is incontestably true can be ILLEGAL and a LIABILITY if not immediately retracted
- Historical revisionism
- Memory hole
PGP-signed messages, for example, are not only authenticated and of proven integrity, but they are nonrepudiable, at least cryptographically.
(Bad key management or other factors might affect any of these, but generally these are characteristics of the system.)
Designing a system which does allow for encryption and authentication but also provides for repudiability would be interesting.
The authentication output is only meaningful to the original conversation participants, because the only discernable difference between a real and a fake authentication even with access to all user keys and ciphertext is provenance - you know this output originated from a direct response to your cryptographic challenge, but nobody else can be sure you didn't just compose it yourself.
(Only the key-holders in a conversation between the "authenticatee" and challenger can generate valid looking answers for their specific pair of keys - either mutually between each other, or all by themselves in order to achieve repudiation)
However if a message payload itself consisted of, say, a PGP-signed message, then that could be authenticated independently (either on receipt, or if/when the public key was disclosed).
Then sues them.
> now feels let down by someone he believes he helped, and wants to be proved right.
Now feels upset he can't make a big payday on a painting he bought for a hundred dollars.
"The owner, however, disagreed and sued him, setting up one of the stranger art authentication cases in recent history."
Why is stranger used here, and not strangest? Would you say it the same way?
Thanks, and sorry for the digression.
There can be only one "strangest" case, while there are many "stranger" cases. Because of this, saying "one of the strangest cases" is grammaticly nonsensical, even though it's in common enough usage.
Even if this case is not the singular strangest, that does not mean it cannot be a member of ("one of") the singularly strangest group of all the cases. That is, the phrase "one of the strangest cases" would ask the reader to imagine that there is a group of cases, each stranger than any case outside of the group, which contains the case in question. (There would presumably be a group of moderately strange cases and a group of uninteresting cases.) It is a phrase so lacking in precision — appropriate for a subjective statement — that it matters not at all if "stranger" is used in places of "strangest," as the NYT opted to do, except that "stranger" only implies the existence of _one_ group of cases that is less interesting than the one containing the Doig case.
"Stranger" is a comparative and implies this case is in a group of more-strange-than-typical cases, but may or may not be exactly as strange as any in that grouping. There is the possibility that some cases are stranger than this one.
In this case "stranger" is probably more correct, as labelling an art case "strangest" is really a personal judgement. This story is unusual, but is it provably any more unusual than other unusual art cases?
(The fact that there are records of an actual Peter Doige, who is now deceased, who has life events that fit the narrative of the person from whom the painting was bought, while there doesn't seem to be substantial evidence connecting Peter Doig to those events, or to ever having used the name Peter Doige, seems likely to a be problem for the plaintiff at trial, however.)
This is the crux - is there any evidence of this? Is this based purely on the testimony of the claimant?!?
How did this get to court!
Yes, though what's reported in the article is fairly weak indirect evidence, and there seems to be much stronger evidence on the other side.
> How did this get to court!
As soon as someone files a lawsuit, it "gets to court". The threshold for that is extremely low. Even for going to trial, the threshold is low: essentially, the complaint needs to state a legal claim and there needs to be some evidence from which one might conclude that the claim is true -- evaluating the relative credibility of that evidence against other evidence is what trials are for.
What evidence is there in this case?
Its recounted in the article, involving artistic analysis and other things. Its quite indirect, and seems much less substantial than the apparent evidence that it was painted by a very different person with a similar name, but again, weighing the opposing evidence is what a trial is for.
Is this the opinion of the claimant?