American painter Elizabeth Peyton (b.1965) is best known for her unmistakable portraits of musicians, fashion icons and subculture luminaries Documents works from her entire career and includes magazine clippings, historical paintings and unpublished snapshots from her personal archive, along with detailed commentaries on the individual works Peyton’s paintings exemplify new ideas of masculinity while offering a seductive record of an ephemeral scene, updating David Hockney’s intimate 1960s Pop draughtsmanship for the present day Works by Peyton can be found in major collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris Accompanies the artist’s major solo international touring exhibition Laura Hoptman is Kraus Family Senior Curator at the New Museum, New York, where her exhibitions have included ‘Unmonumental’ (2007, co-curated with Richard Flood and Massimiliano Gioni), ‘Tomma Abts’ (2008) and ‘Elizabeth Peyton’ (2008). Iwona Blazwick is Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Previously she was Head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Modern and Commissioning Editor of Contemporary Art at Phaidon Press. John Giorno is a poet, performance artist and AIDS activist and fundraiser whose collaborators have included William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson and Robert Mapplethorpe.