Elizabeth Peyton

American · b. 1965

Elizabeth Peyton (b. 1965, Danbury, Connecticut) is an American artist known for intimate portraits that have played an important role in the revival of figurative painting since the 1990s. Working in painting, drawing, and printmaking, she portrays friends, artists, musicians, writers, historical figures, and cultural icons with the same sense of emotional proximity. Her subjects have included Kurt Cobain, David Hockney, Frida Kahlo, Queen Elizabeth II, and people from her own personal circle. Peyton works from life, memory, photographs, literature, film, and existing artworks. Small scale, luminous colour, fluid brushwork, and psychological intimacy characterize much of her work, transforming portraiture into an exploration of admiration, desire, individuality, and the passage of time.