Reflecting the century with Peter Doig

The Musée d'Orsay is devoting a room to Peter Doig, a contemporary artist born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1959. He is undoubtedly one of the best-known and most highly-rated contemporary artists in the world, and a major figure in the revival of figurative art.

The dome room features some fifteen large canvases painted over the last twenty years.

Doig has developed a distinctive artistic style that blends realism and abstraction. His paintings combine realistic elements - often a solitary figure or ethereal landscapes - with more abstract aspects, notably the treatment of backgrounds or light. His often atmospheric and enigmatic paintings quickly capture the viewer's attention.

His works often have a narrative quality, evoking mysterious, dreamlike scenes. He draws his inspiration from his everyday life, and his subjects come from his immediate surroundings: the view from his studio window, his wife or children, landscapes crossed by car, and so on.


The artist reconstructs these places and moments from his memory or from photos he has taken, asking himself how his encounters extend into himself.