Stroke of genius: Peter Doig's eerie art whisks the mind to enchanted places

Amid the impostures that sometimes pass for 21st-century art, Doig’s record-breaking compositions are jewels of imagination and haunting vision

It must be the most expensive canoe in history. This week in Manhattan a painting by Edinburgh-born Peter Doig of a small white boat lost in a tangle of weeds and tree stumps in some remote wilderness went under the hammer for $26m (£16.6m) in a sale that puts him unquestionably in the top financial echelon of living artists. It is the latest chapter in the most unlikely and heartwarming success story in 21st-century art.

Doig is a decent man, a generous teacher and a talented artist. More than a decade ago, I visited his studio when I was writing a catalogue for an exhibition he was about to have in Santa Monica with his friend Chris Ofili. They had neighbouring studios in east London at the time: both now live and work mostly in Trinidad. Doig spent most of the time praising Ofili. Yet all around us in his studio were his own paintings which have since become some of the most famous of our time.

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