The artist Gavin Brown, NYC (gift of the artist) Acquired from the above by the present owner

- National Portrait Gallery, London, “Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels,” October 3 - January 5, 2020 - Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, "Live Forever," October 21 - March 21, 2010 - Whitechapel Gallery, "Live Forever," London, July 9 - Sept 30, 2009 - Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, "Live Forever," March 7 - June 24, 2009 - New Museum, New York, "Live Forever," October 8 - January 11, 2009 - Petzel, New York, "Screen," January 19 - February 24, 1996

- Bidisha, "Elizabeth Peyton: aire and Angels review- beautiful loners," The Guardian, 12 Oct 2019 - Siegel, Lee, “Painting Faces,” The Wall Street Journal, 7 Feb 2009 - Tscherny, Nadia, “Beautiful People,” Art in America, 23 Feb 2009 - Jerry Saltz, "Elizabeth II," New York Magazine, 7 May 2008 - Smee, Sebastian, “Daring strokes go pop,” The Boston Globe, 23 Nov 2008 - Smith, Roberta, “The Personal and the Painterly,” The New York Times, 9 Oct 2008 - Tomkins, Calvin, The Artist of the Portrait: The deliverance of Elizabeth Peyton, The New Yorker, 6 Oct 2008 - Hainley, Bruce, "Screen," Art Forum, Summer 1996

Elizabeth Peyton, a defining artist of her generation, bridges histories by creating intimate communities within her work, connecting friends, peers, and a legacy of artists across disciplines. Her 1995 painting, Blue Liam, is a poignant early work depicting the English singer and former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. Painted from a photograph, this painting reflects Peyton’s ability to merge the personal with the iconic. Peyton’s unparalleled ability to capture human essence stems from her understanding of her subjects; her portraits embody the spirit of the era in which they were created. When she painted Blue Liam, Oasis was on the rise—their hit songs were in constant rotation on radio, and the band made numerous television appearances. Their second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, had been released the previous October. Yet Peyton’s portraits of Liam and his brother Noel diverge from the band’s rebellious image, conveying a sense of fragility and delicacy instead. “There’s something in music that fascinates me,” she reflected in 2009. “Whatever was in Liam Gallagher’s voice, I wanted to capture.” Peyton’s view of her subjects transcends conventional distinctions; she finds no boundary between friends and idols, between love and fandom. “There is no separation for me between people I know through their music or photos and someone I know personally,” she has stated. “The way I perceive them is very similar…there’s no difference between certain qualities that I find inspiring in them.” With this philosophy, she prefers to call her works “pictures of people” rather than portraits. In this way, Blue Liam blurs the line between a historical figure and an unknown friend, both deserving of art’s democratic reach and reverence. Art historian David Joselit has described Peyton’s work as a “fan’s tribute of love,” lushly reinterpreting popular media sources. In Blue Liam, for example, she captures both an individual and a broader archetype. Ultimately, Peyton’s work elevates each subject to the status of history painting—a celebration of image and memory as something worthy of preservation. Blue Liam resonates as a record of time now gone by capturing a fleeting era and a memento of the past. Like a relic, it lives on as myth, honoring both the peak of performance and the quieter moments in between. In Peyton’s world, myth resides not just in grand gestures but in the stillness where performer and audience, person and admirer, are quietly unified.

My wife is pregnant, which is fundamentally rewiring my neurological operating system. Is this a physiological expression of adulthood? I don’t know, but in any case, this happy event is leading me to make some decisions (and sacrifices) that would have been unthinkable seven months ago. Selling one of the jewels of my hard-earned collection is one of them. So here we go: this painting that I have obsessed over long before I had the opportunity to acquire it will now be up for grabs for its next custodian at Fair Warning. Elizabeth Peyton—what else is there to say? You know my and Fair Warning’s position on the artist. She is the best portraitist of her generation; nobody comes close. The artists who use a brush know it, and all the people who (still) use their eyes and heart know it as well. She is not just the hot artist of the week; she is like a discreet desert cactus that will not only survive but thrive under a sun that will gradually burn away all the hype and herd mentality in the art market to sand. To some degree, the fate of Fair Warning and Elizabeth Peyton are intertwined. If I’m wrong and the art world loses its artistic and intellectual diversity by turning into a Lalanne and Damien amusement park decorated by you-know-who, then Fair Warning and Elizabeth will vanish into oblivion. But my bet is on the return of the cacti 🌵 . This is just my two cents, don’t shoot the messenger ( we have good security at @cocos.nyc )