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Lot Essay
‘I think Trinidad took me by surprise in that it’s such a potent place visually: as soon as you open up the door it’s like, boom!’ (Peter Doig)
Peter Doig’s exquisite watercolour Yara (2001-2002) captures the magic the artist found on his return to Trinidad: the island where he had spent his early childhood, and where, some forty years later, he made his home. The work depicts Yara Beach, a place which would inspire some of Doig’s most iconic and otherworldly paintings. Bathed in lilac and emerald green, feathery strokes and dripping, aqueous washes convey foliage and glimmering reflections. The bay curves out to a hazy horizon. White pigment sparkles across the surface like ocean spray. Acquired by Ole Faarup soon after its creation, Yara has been exhibited internationally, appearing in Peter Doig: Charley’s Space in Maastricht and Nîmes (2003-2004); Peter Doig: Works on Paper, which opened at the Dallas Museum of Art before travelling to Canada (2005-2006); and—alongside historic masters of the medium such as J. M. W. Turner—in Tate Britain’s centuries-spanning group exhibition Watercolour (2011).
Following his father’s work for a shipping company, Doig’s family moved from Scotland to Trinidad when he was two years old, and to Canada when he was seven. He grew up between Canada and Scotland, eventually studying art in London, where he rose to fame during the 1990s. In 2000, Doig joined his friend Chris Ofili on a month-long residency in Trinidad, which rekindled his fondness for the island: he settled there with his family two years later, and Ofili followed soon afterwards. Together the two artists would kayak around the bays and islets of the north coast, exploring ‘incredible landscapes and caves, archaic spaces, natural cathedrals, and chasms, strange pelicans …’ (P. Doig quoted in C. Ofili, ‘Peter Doig by Chris Ofili’, BOMB, 1 October 2007). An encounter between a man and a bird they witnessed on Yara Beach led to Doig’s landmark paintings Pelican (Stag) (2003) and Pelican (2004). With its looming palm trees and ethereal palette, Yara echoes those works’ mysterious, supernatural grandeur.
Doig’s work had long been defined by the dynamics of memory, movement and mediation. He approached subjects via secondary sources and veiled them in painterly layers—only depicting Canada, for example, from the distance of London. While these themes remained important, Trinidad led to a marked shift in his practice. The environment demanded a direct response. ‘I think Trinidad took me by surprise’, Doig said, ‘in that it’s such a potent place visually: as soon as you open up the door it’s like, boom! … I don’t think I’m referring back to my past here, [the work] seems to be more about things I’m experiencing in the here and now’ (P. Doig quoted in L. Buck, ‘Interview with Peter Doig on how Trinidad gave his art immediacy’, The Art Newspaper, 1 February 2008).
After initially working with postcards and other found images, Doig began to take snapshots on his coastal excursions, and, later, would sometimes paint without photographs altogether. In hallucinatory hues, dilute textures and increasingly essentialised form, he distilled the island’s extraordinary atmosphere into luminous, lucid visions that reached a transcendent new plane. ‘I don’t think of the present day as being that important to depict’, he said. ‘A painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless’ (P. Doig quoted in ibid.). In Yara, he conjures an eternal, primal image of the shore—a place between—that could be seen now, a thousand years ago, or only in a dream.
THE OLE FAARUP COLLECTION
‘I’ve got so much joy out of the art world, and I want to give it back’ (Ole Faarup)
The home of Ole Faarup was a modern-day Kunstkammer. From room to room, the walls were filled with paintings and the floors piled high with sculptures. This extraordinary, all-encompassing visual environment was a convivial setting for a collector who saw his artworks as a family, and appreciated being in their company every day. Among the most admired in Denmark, Faarup’s exceptional collection remains as testament to the vision and passion of its owner.
While it displays a distinctly Danish sensibility, the story of Faarup’s collection is international. His interest in art was sparked in 1960s New York, where he worked for the Danish design company Georg Jensen. Down the road from his office was the Museum of Modern Art. He began to spend his lunch-breaks among the museum’s masterpieces, and to develop the sharp, intuitive eye that would guide him for years to come.
After his return to Denmark the following decade—where he became director of Illums Bolighus, and later took over furniture retailer 3 Falke Møbler in Frederiksberg—Faarup began to build his collection, with an initial focus on homegrown artists. His first major purchase was Per Kirkeby’s Skovsøen (Lake Forest) (1970), which he kept for the rest of his life. Further highlights among the collection’s Danish names include Ejler Bille, Tal R, Asger Jorn and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba.
Some other early acquisitions, however, made way for newer art by younger artists. The collection was in constant motion, active and engaged with the present moment. Faarup had a superb sense of intuition and collected many major artists early in their careers. These included many Young British Artists of the 1990s—Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas, Noble & Webster—and, during the same decade, the painters Peter Doig and Chris Ofili. Ofili’s Blossom (1997) and Doig’s Country Rock (1998-1999) stand out among their most iconic and celebrated works, and have graced the catalogue covers of major museum exhibitions to which Faarup lent them.
Amid works that hail from many different countries, a grouping of paintings and sculptures from Germany also emerges as a strong vein in the collection. Faarup’s early purchase of a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat—then an artist little-known in Denmark—is yet another example of his forward-looking vision. In more recent years, he acquired works by the up-and-coming Italian artist Guglielmo Castelli, the Cameroonian Pascale Marthine Tayou, and the Polish neo-surrealist Ewa Juszkiewicz. Faarup retained his strong interest in contemporary Danish art, too, forging a close relationship with the rising star Esben Weile Kjær.
Faarup never bought art for the sake of investment, but rather was guided by his own personal emotive responses. He also placed great importance upon meeting the artists whose work he owned, recalling memorable encounters with Doig and Ofili, with Ejler Bille, and with Warhol at Max’s Kansas City in New York. Something of an artist’s soul, he believed, resided in their work. Indeed, it is the capacity to convey another human view of the world—whether it thrills and quickens the pulse, or offers an escape from the noise of day-to-day life—that gives art its power, beauty and integrity.
Living among these artworks as his intimate companions, it is little wonder that Faarup regarded his collection with such warmth. With his legacy, he set out to create a fund through which museums can acquire new works by young Danish artists. The Ole Faarup Art Foundation will share his joy with others, and leave his country’s artistic lifeblood all the stronger. While his collection represents more than half a century of deeply-felt passion for art, Ole Faarup always had an intelligent eye fixed firmly on the future.
Peter Doig’s exquisite watercolour Yara (2001-2002) captures the magic the artist found on his return to Trinidad: the island where he had spent his early childhood, and where, some forty years later, he made his home. The work depicts Yara Beach, a place which would inspire some of Doig’s most iconic and otherworldly paintings. Bathed in lilac and emerald green, feathery strokes and dripping, aqueous washes convey foliage and glimmering reflections. The bay curves out to a hazy horizon. White pigment sparkles across the surface like ocean spray. Acquired by Ole Faarup soon after its creation, Yara has been exhibited internationally, appearing in Peter Doig: Charley’s Space in Maastricht and Nîmes (2003-2004); Peter Doig: Works on Paper, which opened at the Dallas Museum of Art before travelling to Canada (2005-2006); and—alongside historic masters of the medium such as J. M. W. Turner—in Tate Britain’s centuries-spanning group exhibition Watercolour (2011).
Following his father’s work for a shipping company, Doig’s family moved from Scotland to Trinidad when he was two years old, and to Canada when he was seven. He grew up between Canada and Scotland, eventually studying art in London, where he rose to fame during the 1990s. In 2000, Doig joined his friend Chris Ofili on a month-long residency in Trinidad, which rekindled his fondness for the island: he settled there with his family two years later, and Ofili followed soon afterwards. Together the two artists would kayak around the bays and islets of the north coast, exploring ‘incredible landscapes and caves, archaic spaces, natural cathedrals, and chasms, strange pelicans …’ (P. Doig quoted in C. Ofili, ‘Peter Doig by Chris Ofili’, BOMB, 1 October 2007). An encounter between a man and a bird they witnessed on Yara Beach led to Doig’s landmark paintings Pelican (Stag) (2003) and Pelican (2004). With its looming palm trees and ethereal palette, Yara echoes those works’ mysterious, supernatural grandeur.
Doig’s work had long been defined by the dynamics of memory, movement and mediation. He approached subjects via secondary sources and veiled them in painterly layers—only depicting Canada, for example, from the distance of London. While these themes remained important, Trinidad led to a marked shift in his practice. The environment demanded a direct response. ‘I think Trinidad took me by surprise’, Doig said, ‘in that it’s such a potent place visually: as soon as you open up the door it’s like, boom! … I don’t think I’m referring back to my past here, [the work] seems to be more about things I’m experiencing in the here and now’ (P. Doig quoted in L. Buck, ‘Interview with Peter Doig on how Trinidad gave his art immediacy’, The Art Newspaper, 1 February 2008).
After initially working with postcards and other found images, Doig began to take snapshots on his coastal excursions, and, later, would sometimes paint without photographs altogether. In hallucinatory hues, dilute textures and increasingly essentialised form, he distilled the island’s extraordinary atmosphere into luminous, lucid visions that reached a transcendent new plane. ‘I don’t think of the present day as being that important to depict’, he said. ‘A painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless’ (P. Doig quoted in ibid.). In Yara, he conjures an eternal, primal image of the shore—a place between—that could be seen now, a thousand years ago, or only in a dream.
THE OLE FAARUP COLLECTION
‘I’ve got so much joy out of the art world, and I want to give it back’ (Ole Faarup)
The home of Ole Faarup was a modern-day Kunstkammer. From room to room, the walls were filled with paintings and the floors piled high with sculptures. This extraordinary, all-encompassing visual environment was a convivial setting for a collector who saw his artworks as a family, and appreciated being in their company every day. Among the most admired in Denmark, Faarup’s exceptional collection remains as testament to the vision and passion of its owner.
While it displays a distinctly Danish sensibility, the story of Faarup’s collection is international. His interest in art was sparked in 1960s New York, where he worked for the Danish design company Georg Jensen. Down the road from his office was the Museum of Modern Art. He began to spend his lunch-breaks among the museum’s masterpieces, and to develop the sharp, intuitive eye that would guide him for years to come.
After his return to Denmark the following decade—where he became director of Illums Bolighus, and later took over furniture retailer 3 Falke Møbler in Frederiksberg—Faarup began to build his collection, with an initial focus on homegrown artists. His first major purchase was Per Kirkeby’s Skovsøen (Lake Forest) (1970), which he kept for the rest of his life. Further highlights among the collection’s Danish names include Ejler Bille, Tal R, Asger Jorn and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba.
Some other early acquisitions, however, made way for newer art by younger artists. The collection was in constant motion, active and engaged with the present moment. Faarup had a superb sense of intuition and collected many major artists early in their careers. These included many Young British Artists of the 1990s—Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas, Noble & Webster—and, during the same decade, the painters Peter Doig and Chris Ofili. Ofili’s Blossom (1997) and Doig’s Country Rock (1998-1999) stand out among their most iconic and celebrated works, and have graced the catalogue covers of major museum exhibitions to which Faarup lent them.
Amid works that hail from many different countries, a grouping of paintings and sculptures from Germany also emerges as a strong vein in the collection. Faarup’s early purchase of a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat—then an artist little-known in Denmark—is yet another example of his forward-looking vision. In more recent years, he acquired works by the up-and-coming Italian artist Guglielmo Castelli, the Cameroonian Pascale Marthine Tayou, and the Polish neo-surrealist Ewa Juszkiewicz. Faarup retained his strong interest in contemporary Danish art, too, forging a close relationship with the rising star Esben Weile Kjær.
Faarup never bought art for the sake of investment, but rather was guided by his own personal emotive responses. He also placed great importance upon meeting the artists whose work he owned, recalling memorable encounters with Doig and Ofili, with Ejler Bille, and with Warhol at Max’s Kansas City in New York. Something of an artist’s soul, he believed, resided in their work. Indeed, it is the capacity to convey another human view of the world—whether it thrills and quickens the pulse, or offers an escape from the noise of day-to-day life—that gives art its power, beauty and integrity.
Living among these artworks as his intimate companions, it is little wonder that Faarup regarded his collection with such warmth. With his legacy, he set out to create a fund through which museums can acquire new works by young Danish artists. The Ole Faarup Art Foundation will share his joy with others, and leave his country’s artistic lifeblood all the stronger. While his collection represents more than half a century of deeply-felt passion for art, Ole Faarup always had an intelligent eye fixed firmly on the future.