Kurt

Elizabeth Peyton’s Kurt belongs to a much-celebrated series of portraits of the singer Kurt Cobain, the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter for Nirvana—whom the artist had painted the year following his passing in 1994, at the age of just 27. His sudden death affected an entire generation of young fans who felt a close personal connection both to his uniquely authentic brand of music and his struggles with mental health and addiction. One of those who resonated with the power of music was Peyton herself: “There's something in music that fascinates me,” she has said “how it communicates emotion so immediately. That's something I wanted in my paintings” (E. Peyton, quoted by A. Purcell, “Manhattan Rhapsodies,” The Guardian, July 1, 2009, online [accessed: 10/24/2025]).

Peyton’s portraits of Kurt Cobain are filled with both beauty and pathos. Wearing a shirt made out of loosely fitting blue fabric, the singer’s delicate features are formed using the skillful movement of the artist’s fluid brushstrokes. The characteristic tussles of the singer’s blond hair appears to glow against the dark ground, as Peyton infuses the tips of his locks with golden highlights. Finally, the deep pools of blue for his downcast eyes and the bright red ‘pop’ of Cobain’s cherry red lips completes the intense yet intimate composition.

Human emotion and artistry have always been fundamental themes in Peyton's work. Peyton produced Kurt ahead of her first solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s enterprise. Within the intimate storefront space of the gallery, these expressions of emotional connection radiated intensely. This exhibition helped launch Peyton's career and established the significance of her approach to figuration. Other paintings of the Nirvana lead singer included Zok's Kurt, Alizerean Kurt, Blur Kurt, Kurt Sleeping, Kurt Smoking, and Blue Kurt. Created during a period when other artists rejected the painted portrait, Peyton's work freshly rejuvenates the style. She employs the paint in a sensitive and expressive manner, not afraid to expose her painterly brush strokes. Her vibrant colors expose the underlying personal sentiments that exist between the artist and her subjects.
Peyton's rapidly applied, expressive brushstrokes that make up Cobain’s shirt evoke Willem de Kooning’s emotive abstract figures, while the degree of intimacy with which her figures are executed recalls the Renaissance portrait miniatures of Nicholas Hilliard. Furthermore, the angst and emotions that are apparent in Peyton’s work have drawn comparisons with the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

As Roberta Smith noted in her review of Peyton’s 1995 Gavin Brown’s enterprise show, “Her penchant for indicating his pale skin and bleached hair with stark white lines gives his famous charisma an incandescent glow that seems to be both coming into focus and fading away. In these and other ways, the auras of painting and fame are repeatedly equated” (R. Smith, “Blood and Punk Royalty to Grunge Royalty,” The New York Times, March 24, 1995, p. C30, online [accessed:10/23/2025]).

Elizabeth Peyton’s subjects find themselves inhabiting a magical space where many overlapping and divergent worlds coalesce. In her hands, the 90s-era aesthetic personified by the present work transcends time. Using heightened colors, intense and intimate detail and a votive-like approach to her subjects, Peyton has found a way to be both of her time and yet mystically of another time. Connected to an earlier, mythical and allegorical world, Kurt is infused with poetry and legend, and offers up a beautiful Romantic dream.