American artist Elizabeth Peyton has been credited with infusing the old genre of portraiture with a new life. Her idealized and highly stylized oil paintings and drawings of willowy, melancholy figures -- often contemporary celebrities, artists or friends -- raise questions around the possible role of the genre today. Elizabeth Peyton is published in conjunction with the artist's major solo exhibition at the New Museum in New York, which will travel to the Whitechapel in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.

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.