The Scottish artist at the centre of an extraordinary court case over a painting he claims he did not paint, has spoken of his dismay at a row which has "bigger implications" beyond himself.

Peter Doig, an acclaimed artist born in Edinburgh, is at the centre of a £3.8m court case in US.

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He says he feels "personal injustice" at the case, a "senseless litigation" which has left him baffled.

The artist, the subject of a lauded retrospective at the National Galleries of Scotland in 2013, has firmly stated a landscape painting, owned by a Canadian former corrections officer, is not by him.

The officer, Robert Fletcher, claims it is by Doig and now both sides will meet at a trial next month at the United States District Court for Northern Illinois.

Mr Fletcher's case contends that Doig's denial has scuppered a plan to sell the work - a large landscape - for what would likely be a sizeable amount of money.

At auction, Doig is one of Scotland's most successful artists, with his dream-like paintings selling for up to £16m.

Doig said he feels the case could set a dangerous precedent.

The artist said: "After four years of this lawsuit, plaintiffs have not presented a shred of evidence that I created the painting and instead, we found and conclusively identified the real author of the painting, a deceased man named Pete Doige.

"Apart from the personal injustice of this case, it has bigger implications: most artists lack the resources to defend against attempts to bully them into acknowledging works not of their creation as their own by unscrupulous plaintiffs willing to abuse the US legal system."

He added: "As a UK citizen, it baffles me that the US Court has allowed these opportunists' to pursue this senseless litigation...and set this dangerous precedent."

The painting is signed Pete Doige 76.

Mr Fletcher, 62, claims it is by Doig, and was painted when he was a teenager, whereas Mr Doig says it is by another painter with a similar name.

"I am 100 percent convinced that this is the man and that this is the painting I own,” Mr. Fletcher has said.

Mr Fletcher said he bought the painting from Doig after he was a teenager incarcerated for drug possession at Thunder Bay Correctional Center - a claim Doig also denies.

Mr Fletcher says he became Mr Doige's parole officer and also helped him find a job.

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He and a gallery in Chicago believe the painting contains many similarities to Mr Doig's other work, including landscape, water, logs sticking out of the lake, and white lichen on the trees.

Mr Doig lived in Toronto in 1976 and says he has never been to Thunder Bay or been in prison.

"I did not begin to paint on canvas until late 1979. (Before that, I had done some pencil and ink drawings on paper),” he has said in court papers.

The sister of the other Mr Doige, Marilyn Doige Bovard, said she believes Mr Fletcher has made a mistake.

"I believe that Mr. Fletcher is mistaken and that he actually met my brother, Peter, who I believe did this painting,” she said in a court declaration.

She said the work’s desert scene may show the area in Arizona where her mother moved after a divorce and where her brother spent some time.

Doig spent the first year of his life in Edinburgh before his family moved to Trinidad.

In 1966, they moved again, to Canada.

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He returned to the UK, to London, in 1979 and in the early 1980s studied at Wimbledon School of Art and Central Saint Martins.

A move to Montreal followed in 1986, three years later he returned to London and in 2002 went back to Trinidad.

He also spends time in Germany, where he is a professor at the fine arts academy in Dusseldorf.