Elizabeth Peyton: Portrait of an Artist [Hardcover]

Richard Klein (Author), Elizabeth Peyton (Author), Rirkrit Tiravanija (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2009

She is one of the most celebrated portrait painters of recent times, but it is not as well known that Elizabeth Peyton has always practiced photography alongside painting. Her photographs, taken over the last two decades with 35-millimeter Polaroid and (more recently) digital cameras, reveal a more informal side to Peyton's aesthetic, in which the intrinsic serendipities of photographic exposure and development are allowed full play. The 62 portraits published in this volume are a mixture of celebrities and art stars of varying fame--such as Marc Jacobs, Matthew Barney, Chloe Sevigny, Jake Chapman, Nick Relph, Spencer Sweeney, Jarvis Cocker, Gavin Brown, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Olafur Eliasson, Jonathan Horowitz, Craig Wadlin, Urs Fischer, Franz Ackermann, Pauline Daly, Pati Hertling and Ben Brunnemer. These are the elegantly tousled, the glamorously at-ease, reclining in a world of Bohemian camaraderie under Peyton's gaze. "Again and again her camera seeks out pale young men with mussed hair," The New York Times observed when these pictures were exhibited at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in July 2008, responding to the casual, beau monde atmosphere Peyton conjures here. Whether depicted at the elegant Chateau Marmont or in more intimate domestic settings, the people introduced in this volume emerge through the artist's spontaneous treatment and the uncalculated quirks of over- or underexposed images.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Damiani (February 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8862080778
• ISBN-13: 978-8862080774
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,311,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book on enigmatic artist, April 8, 2009

By 

Karolyn S. Graham "ArtLover" (Des Moines, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elizabeth Peyton: Portrait of an Artist (Hardcover)

Elizabeth Peyton wants her art to speak for itself. This book does exactly that. With gorgeous color photos of her best work to date (2005), this monograph (compiled by the artist) takes the reader chronologically through Peyton's career beginning with drawings from the early 90's. In the 250+ pages of the book, there are only three pages of an interview with Peyton herself, and those pages are like a gift. The minimal remaining text is primarily reprinted exhibition reviews and one creative short story. (Warhol would be pleased: "I never read. I just look at pictures.") Seeing so many of Peyton's paintings up close makes the reader fall in love with the work as one tries to pinpoint what makes her portraits so captivating and outstanding in their genre.