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From: art book review Category: ArtBooks Date: 24 May 2007 Time: 04:43 AM Review: www.phaidon.com A book about Peter Doig, the billionaire painter. He returned to Port of Spain (with Chris O,) funny I have just been reading Trinidadian V.S. Naipaul's book "The Middle Passage" about the Windies, and interesting to realise that Naipauls pessimistic book was written in a similar period to what you imagine was Doig's childhood idyll living in the tropics. This Phaidon series on contemporary artists is very good, you feel like you're getting a full picture, from invitation card to old shows, to writing on the artist, by the artist, and stuff he/she likes. And lots of big pictures. I felt like I knew P. Doig a lot better by the end of it. Doig has become massive l in the way that Lucien Freud is. He is much better artist than Freud, but it's nice to get a perspective on him besides numbers with lots of zeros. His slow climb out of the 80s mess of painting, which mirrors or perhaps in small part contributes to the art world's renewed interest in the oily stuff. His serious interest in images as a store of psychological involvement, sounds obvious but often forgotten, really it is not far from narrative. His love of craft, the fiddling round with the surface that makes painting pictures more contemporary, the illusion is acknowledged. These elements are the source of his popularity, but his work his obviously sincere, and he can't help all that dough, and I hope he is having fun spending it.