Latest: Artist says 'justice prevailed' in painting trial
CHICAGO (AP) - The Latest on an art dispute that landed in federal court in Chicago (all times local):
9:35 p.m.
A celebrated artist who won an unusual civil trial in Chicago is welcoming the judge's decision that he was right when he insisted he didn't paint a work now owned by a retired prison worker.
Peter Doig (doyg') issued a statement Tuesday after a federal judge ruled entirely in the 57-year-old's favor.
He says "justice prevailed" after three years of litigation but was "way too long in coming." He adds a living artist should never have to "defend the authorship of his own work."
The trial pitted the Scottish-born Doig against Canadian Robert Fletcher, who paid just $100 in the 1970s for the desert landscape and had hoped for a windfall of millions by selling the painting.
The judge said evidence showed the case was one about imperfect memories, coincidences and mistaken identity.
Fletcher's attorney, William Zieske, says an appeal is possible.
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3:30 p.m.
A federal judge says internationally heralded artist Peter Doig was correct when he insisted that he did not paint a landscape work that had been valued at over $10 million.
The judge made the comment Tuesday as he began explaining his reasoning in the case as he led up to a verdict. He has not yet formally announced a verdict, but the entire case of the painting's owner hinges on his claim that Doig painted it.
The judge says evidence clearly showed that it is case of mistaken identity and that a different Peter Doige, who spelled his last name with an 'e,' actually painted it.
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2:30 p.m.
Legal experts say a unique federal case in Chicago over whether an internationally heralded painter did or did not paint a desert landscape once valued at over $10 million has created a stir in the art world.
A judge was expected to issue a verdict Tuesday in a civil bench trial pitting artist Peter Doig (doyg) against retired Canadian prison official Robert Fletcher. Fletcher says he bought the painting for $100 in 1976. He sued Doig for disavowing the work and causing its value to tank.
New York art and law professor Amy Adler says authenticity disputes typically arise long after an artist dies and not when a still-living artist flatly denies a work is his.
She says the principle is well established in the art world that an artist's word on whether a work is his is final. She says that makes many artists uncomfortable that Doig was taken to court.
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1:10 a.m.
A federal judge in Chicago is set to issue a verdict in a peculiar civil trial over a celebrated Scottish-born artist's insistence that he did not paint a landscape work that was once valued at more than $10 million.
The painting's owner, a prison official who paid $100 for in the mid-1970s, sued painter Peter Doig (doyg) for millions after the work's projected sales price tanked when the 57-year-old artist disavowed it.
Authenticity disputes typically arise after artists die, making this case all the rarer in the art world. The judge planned to announce his decision Tuesday.
Robert Fletcher says he acquired the painting from a 16-year-old Doig around 1976. But one witness testified her now-deceased brother, whose name was similar to Doig's, painted it.