Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton (b. 1965) attended the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1984 to 1987. The artist had her first solo exhibition in 1987 at Althea Viafora Gallery in New York. In the early 1990s, Peyton proceeded to have solo exhibitions at nontraditional sites, such as the washroom at Novecento, a former restaurant in downtown New York (1992); Room 828 at the Hotel Chelsea, New York (1993); and at the Prince Albert Pub in London (1995).

In 2008, the New Museum, New York, organized the mid-career retrospective, Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton, which later traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, the Netherlands. The artist has had solo exhibitions at notable institutions such as The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2008); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2009); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2011); Opelvillen, Rüsselsheim, Germany (2011); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (2013); Gallery Met, Metropolitan Opera, New York (2016); Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2017); French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici (2017); and Kling & Bang, Reykjavik, Iceland (2018).

In 2019, the National Portrait Gallery, London, presented Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels, in which the artist’s paintings were presented alongside historical works of portraiture drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, presented the solo exhibition Elizabeth Peyton: Practice in 2020. In 2025, work by Peyton was featured in the group exhibition Copistes at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, which was organized in special collaboration with the Musée du Louvre. The Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, will open a solo exhibition of the artist’s work in September 2027.

Peyton is the recipient of several awards, including the Larry Aldrich Award, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2006), and she was an honoree at the 2018 New Museum Gala.

The artist has been the subject of several solo exhibitions at David Zwirner. Elizabeth Peyton: Angel was presented at the gallery’s London location in 2023, and, in 2024, David Zwirner organized the site-specific solo presentation Elizabeth Peyton: daystar hakuro at the historic Ryosokuin Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Elizabeth Peyton: La pesanteur et la grâce was presented at David Zwirner Paris in 2025. Peyton’s first New York solo exhibition with David Zwirner, Elizabeth Peyton: mountains in my heart (the death of Sarpedon), was on view at the gallery’s West 19th Street location in 2026.

Work by the artist is held in international public collections, such as the Art Institute of Chicago; Boros Collection, Berlin; The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Kultur123 Stadt Rüsselsheim, Germany; Kunstmuseum Basel; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Portrait Gallery, London; Orlando Museum of Art, Florida; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rubell Museum, Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Saint Louis Art Museum; Tate, United Kingdom; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Peyton has lived and traveled internationally throughout her career, and is currently based in New York and Paris.