Federal judge: Doig did not create painting

CHICAGO — A U.S. judge said Tuesday that a celebrated artist was right when he insisted he didn’t paint a work now owned by a retired prison worker, a finding that likely ensures the artwork will now be worth a fraction of the previous estimated value of $10 million or more.

The ruling came at the end of a unique bench trial in Chicago that pitted Scottish-born Peter Doig against Canadian Robert Fletcher, who paid $100 in the 1970s for the desert landscape painting and had hoped for a windfall of millions of dollars in retirement.

Authenticity disputes typically arise long after an artist dies, not, as in this case, when the artist is still living and flatly denies a work is his. The oddity of such a dispute created a stir in the art world, where the principle is widely accepted that artists’ word on whether a work is theirs or not is final.

The presiding judge in the case, Gary Feinerman, spent nearly two hours explaining his decision and going through evidence, from high school yearbooks to prison records, all of which demonstrated, he said, that Doig “absolutely did not paint the work in question.”

The trial stemmed from a lawsuit filed in U.S. court by Fletcher, in which he sought millions in damages after the painting’s projected sale price tanked following Doig’s disavowal of it.

The evidence, the judge said, showed this was a case of imperfect memories, coincidences and ultimately mistaken identity. He said it was a different Peter Doige, who spelled his last name with an “e,” who actually created the artwork. Feinerman rejected the idea that Doig, the renowned artist, and Doige were the same person.

A key witness for Doig was a Canadian woman, Marilyn Doige Bovard, who also told the court the painting was by her now-deceased brother, Peter Doige. She testified that her brother had been in prison where Fletcher worked in the mid- to late ’70s.