Frederick Douglass by Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton’s paintings have been popular since the mid-1990s. Using oil paints, she creates stylized renderings of her friends and muses, alongside pop culture icons and European monarchs. Most of her paintings are relatively small portraits, and her work has regularly formed a part of exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and London, including at the Royal Academy. She has named the photographers Robert Mapplethorpe, Alfred Stieglitz, and Nadar as formative influences, all of whom made images of their close friends and acquaintances. Peyton uses photographs as a basis for her paintings, and recent work has included portraits of musicians such as Kanye West and The Libertines.

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