"Not My Work": When Artists Dispute Authorship

The assumption that artists love credit is challenged when an artist appears to repudiate their authorship. Sometimes repudiation arises from personal animus while in other instances an artist might feel that their work is no longer "up to snuff."¹ In some extreme circumstances, artists can be involuntarily thrust into a claim to repudiate their alleged authorship, which happened in the case of Fletcher v. Doig. ²

This lengthy legal dispute centered on the authentication issue of a desert landscape painting signed "Pete Doige '76'". The painting was created in 1976 by an inmate at Thunder Bay Correctional Center (TBCC), the prison in Ontario, Canada where Robert Fletcher worked. Fletcher later purchased it from the inmate for $100. In 2011, a friend noticed the signature on the painting and told Fletcher that it was probably created by a renowned artist named Peter Doig given the similarity of their names. Fletcher subsequently contacted Bartlow Gallery in