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拍品专文
In deft, fluid brushstrokes, Elizabeth Peyton has captured a fleeting moment of intimacy between two musicians at the height of their fame. Painted in 1997—two years after her acclaimed 1995 solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in New York, which itself followed on the heels of the artist’s debut 1993 solo show at the Chelsea Hotel, New York—Jarvis and Liam Smoking is a quintessential example of the portraits that “helped melt the ice that had formed around painting in the early 1990s" (J. Saltz, “Red Lipped Royals”, Artnet magazine, 16 April 1999).
Jarvis and Liam Smoking unites two men–Jarvis Cocker and Liam Gallagher–who helped define the Brit Pop era. By then, Gallagher’s band Oasis had achieved enormous success with their second album, What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?, which entered the UK charts at number one in October 1995 and did not leave the top three for seven months. In 1996, it won Best British Album at the Brit Awards. At that same award ceremony, Jarvis Cocker, the frontman of Pulp, invaded the stage while Michael Jackson was singing to protest the performance—an act that Noel Gallagher, Liam’s brother and bandmate, publicly supported. In a TV interview, Noel said: “Jarvis Cocker is a star and he should be given an MBE.” (N. Gallagher quoted on TFI Friday, Channel 4 television, 1996, online [accessed:4/2/2025]).
“I’m interested in making pictures of artists whose work inspires me,” Peyton once said (E. Peyton quoted in C. Roux “Elizabeth Peyton: The Exceptional Portrait Painter”, The Gentlewoman, no. 8 Autumn & Winter 2013). In an interview with Cocker in 2008, she told him that she decided to paint him after his act of protest at the Brit Awards. “There aren’t many people who stand up, whether it be in culture or politics, and say: “Listen, this is dumb. It doesn’t have to be like this.” After that awards show, I made a painting of you getting out of jail because I thought what you did was so heroic.” (E. Peyton quoted in J. Cocker, “Elizabeth Peyton”, Interview, November 28 2008).
She does not make preparatory sketches before beginning a painting, meaning that the energy and spontaneity that arise from the painting process are retained, resulting in work that is vivid and alive. In this way, the formal qualities of Jarvis and Liam Smoking further underline her tender reverence for her subjects, as well as the beauty of the ephemeral moment that it captures.
Jarvis and Liam Smoking unites two men–Jarvis Cocker and Liam Gallagher–who helped define the Brit Pop era. By then, Gallagher’s band Oasis had achieved enormous success with their second album, What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?, which entered the UK charts at number one in October 1995 and did not leave the top three for seven months. In 1996, it won Best British Album at the Brit Awards. At that same award ceremony, Jarvis Cocker, the frontman of Pulp, invaded the stage while Michael Jackson was singing to protest the performance—an act that Noel Gallagher, Liam’s brother and bandmate, publicly supported. In a TV interview, Noel said: “Jarvis Cocker is a star and he should be given an MBE.” (N. Gallagher quoted on TFI Friday, Channel 4 television, 1996, online [accessed:4/2/2025]).
“I’m interested in making pictures of artists whose work inspires me,” Peyton once said (E. Peyton quoted in C. Roux “Elizabeth Peyton: The Exceptional Portrait Painter”, The Gentlewoman, no. 8 Autumn & Winter 2013). In an interview with Cocker in 2008, she told him that she decided to paint him after his act of protest at the Brit Awards. “There aren’t many people who stand up, whether it be in culture or politics, and say: “Listen, this is dumb. It doesn’t have to be like this.” After that awards show, I made a painting of you getting out of jail because I thought what you did was so heroic.” (E. Peyton quoted in J. Cocker, “Elizabeth Peyton”, Interview, November 28 2008).
She does not make preparatory sketches before beginning a painting, meaning that the energy and spontaneity that arise from the painting process are retained, resulting in work that is vivid and alive. In this way, the formal qualities of Jarvis and Liam Smoking further underline her tender reverence for her subjects, as well as the beauty of the ephemeral moment that it captures.