American artist Elizabeth Peyton came to prominence in the 1990s as one of the few young artists exploring figurative painting. Combining the historic and contemporary, her inspirations include William Shakespeare, 19th-century Romantic authors, Nouvelle Vague filmmakers of the 1960s and musicians Patti Smith and Bob Dylan. A major retrospective of Peyton’s work was held at the New Museum in New York in 2009. She was the subject of a solo exhibition at IMMA in the same year.