George Condo American, b. 1957

Famous for his twisted, psychologically charged portraits, George Condo is one of the most acclaimed painters of his generation. His unmistakable, polyphonic style fuses high and low culture—Picasso, Pop Art, cartoons, and the Old Masters often collide within a single canvas. For Condo, this visual cacophony mirrors the fractured psyche of contemporary life. “I describe what I do,” he said in 2014, “as psychological cubism. Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states.”

Emerging in 1980s New York, Condo was part of a scene that revived figurative painting with swagger and subversion. Friends with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and briefly an assistant at Andy Warhol’s Factory, he absorbed the decade’s electric mix of downtown grit and art-historical reverence. His early canvases pitted the grandeur of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Goya against an irreverent American Pop sensibility. Over time, Condo’s world has grown ever more complex—classical nudes, surreal monsters, ballerinas, and comic-book heroes share the same psychological stage. Picasso remains his kaleidoscopic muse, while his cast of recurring characters—like the scheming butler Rodrigo—reappear throughout his work, each painting another act in an ongoing theatre of the mind.