Peter Doig
2019-22
Pigment on linen
295 x 195 cm
Peter Doig has a close connection to snow- covered mountain landscapes. He grew up in Canada and is a lifelong skier. Doig based this painting on an old postcard, scaling it up and changing it considerably to create this monumental work. Doig clad the skier in the costume of a harlequin, a figure long associated with artists as being a creative outsider and used as a subject by Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso, among others. The crossed skis introduce a religious connotation suggestive of pilgrimage or mountain crosses. The painting was begun in Trinidad. It was worked on during the several months Doig spent in the Swiss Alpine town of Zermatt, where he introduced the towering presence of the Matterhorn in the background, before being finally completed in London.