The portrait is the major subject matter of the American painter Elizabeth Peyton. Her list of models includes not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrities such as Princess Diana, Andy Warhol or Leonardo DiCaprio. For her small-format, seemingly "realistic" paintings, Elizabeth Peyton uses both "public" photographs taken from the print media as well as "private" ones shot by herself. All her works are characterized by a distinct intimacy also reflected in titles which usually reveal only the first name of the respective model. The portraits rest on a subliminal search for fragile beauty and everlasting youth - atmospheric characteristics reminiscent of fin-de-siècle art after 1890. Peyton´s pictures empathize with this emotional world more in an ironic rather than nostalgic way, with the question of the meaning of pictures disseminated by the media raising its head. With 70 paintings, drawings, photographs and graphic sheets, this book presents a broad selection of her works. The artist: Elizabeth Peyton, born 1965 at Danbury, Connecticut. Studies at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Lives and works in New York. Exhibition Schedule: Deichtorhallen Hamburg September 28, 2001 - January 13, 2002