A painting by Lisa Yuskavage titled Night Classes at the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture, dated 2018-2020

One of the most original and influential artists of the past three decades, 

 (b. 1962) creates works that affirm the singularity of the medium of painting while challenging conventional understandings of genres and viewership. At once exhibitionist and introspective, her rich cast of characters and their varied attributes are layered within compositions built of both representational and abstract elements, in which color is the primary vehicle of meaning.

Born in Philadelphia, Yuskavage received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, in 1984 and her MFA from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1986. Since 2005, the artist’s work has been represented by David Zwirner. In 2006, two solo exhibitions were concurrently presented at David Zwirner and Zwirner & Wirth, New York, followed by presentations at the gallery in 2009, 2011, 2015, and 2017. 

, the two-part exhibition on view in 2018, marked her sixth gallery solo show. Subsequent solo exhibitions with the gallery include 

 (Paris, 2023). An exhibition of new work by the artist was presented at David Zwirner Los Angeles in 2025.

In 2015, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, presented 

, a major solo exhibition spanning twenty-five years of the artist’s work. The show traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2016. A large-scale, comprehensive publication by Skira Rizzoli, published on the occasion of the exhibition and created in close collaboration with Yuskavage, includes texts by renowned art historians, curators, and writers including Christopher Bedford, Suzanne Hudson, Catherine Lord, and Siddhartha Mukherjee, as well as an interview with the artist by Katy Siegel.

Yuskavage’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions worldwide, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2000); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2001); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2006); and The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2011; organized as part of 

 was presented at the Aspen Art Museum in 2020 and the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2021. An exhibition of drawings by Yuskavage was on view at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in 2025.

Work by the artist is held in prominent institutions globally including the Art Institute of Chicago; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rubell Museum, Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Yuskavage lives and works in New York.

Lisa Yuskavage, 2020. Photo by Jason Schmidt

Texts by Ariel Levy, Barry Schwabsky, and Lena Dunham

The definitive monograph on innovative American painter Lisa Yuskavage

Lisa Yuskavage is one of the most acclaimed living painters. Known for her highly original approach to figurative painting, Yuskavage challenges conventional understandings of the genre. At times playful and at other times rueful, her bold, eccentric, exhibitionist, and introspective characters inhabit fantastical and vivid compositions, assuming the dual role of subject and object.

Although inspired by popular culture, the artist’s technique is deeply rooted in the history of painting, establishing an underlying tension between polar opposites such as high and low, sacred and profane, harmony and dissonance.

Yuskavage’s first proper monograph features more than 150 color images, including never-before-seen photographs of her studio, along with insightful text contributions from Barry Schwabsky, Lena Dunham, and Ariel Levy.

Lisa Yuskavage

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.