David Hockney's continuing belief in the importance of the portrait and his virtuoso skill in creating a sense of close communication between artist, sitter and viewer has resulted in some of the best-loved works of the postwar era. From the 1950s on, Hockney's most persistent subject matter, in paintings, drawings, collages and photoworks, has been of people usually very close to him, as well as of himself. These works are narratives of autobiographical relationships: they reflect the intimate and often intense stories of this artist's life. They also explore different formal ways of representing the passage of time and at the same time the unavoidable but marvellous stillness of portraits. The works include fascinating sequences as he paints his mother or Henry Geldzahler or Celia Birtwell on and off for decades; the special qualities attached to depictions of lovers; and the range of celebrities, writers and artists — Billy Wilder, Armistead Maupin, W.H. Auden, Henry Moore, Christopher Isherwood — who have been part of a very full life. The text by a distinguished European critic and curator reinforces the point that this hugely popular English-born artist, who made America his second home, has become a figure of worldwide appeal.

R. B. Kitaj (1932-) is recognized as a modern master whose powerful, controversial and highly personal paintings, pastels and drawings reflect his unfashionable commitment to the human figure as a subject, and his complex involvement with the art of the past, with political and social issues, and with his own Jewish identity. Marco Livingstone's definitive and much praised monograph on Kitaj is based on an extraordinary series of interviews and letters between the artist and the author, and provides full and up-to-date documentation of Kitaj's life and work. The artist himself participated actively in the design of the book, and a series of articulate and revealing 'prefaces' to his own paintings are also included here. For this expanded third edition, the author has written a new chapter surveying Kitaj's work in the 1990s, a tragic period dominated by his now famous confrontation with the critics of his 1994 retrospective exhibition, the subsequent death of his wife the artist Sandra Fisher, and his eventual return to the United States. This text is complemented by a new plate section illustrating 22 recent works, and three additional 'prefaces' written by the artist. The Bibliography and Catalogue of Works have been expanded and updated, and finally many illustrations that were black-and-white in earlier editions are now reproduced in full colour. With its fresh account of a productive and turbulent phase in Kitaj's career, this new edition will be indispensable for all admirers of the artist.