“…The portraits make an immediate impact…. No matter what happens, this book will have its historical interest.” —New York Times Book Review

"The whole book feels like a series of tall, illuminated poems, poems that take place in conversation between painter and sitter, between sitter and viewer, between viewer and painter. It’s a gorgeous book…” —Rain Taxi Review of Books

“Over the past 20 years, Clemente has painted many of his celebrity and his non-celebrity friends; many are sumptuously reproduced in a new book, Life is Paradise.” —Tattler

“Life is Paradise serves as a kind of figurative compass to the world Clemente hasn’t merely traveled through but conquered since 1981.” —Vogue

“…Frontal portraits of faces with huge articulate eyes that show what he means by ‘Painting is still. Painting doesn’t move and play the game.’ The watercolors are especially beautiful.” —San Jose Mercury News

“Clemente’s portraits, by turns whimsical and haunting, all convey an enigmatic, Mona Lisa-like silence…” —Notorious

“Painter Francisco Clemente’s ravishing portraits of his wide-ranging circle have been newly collected in the forthcoming Life is Paradise." —Elle

"Clemente is one of those ‘natural’ talents.” —Artforum

More Press Coverage !!
13-page feature in Vanity Fair
Eight-page feature in W
“Smock Observer” Smock
“Page Six” New York Post
“Sunday Styles” The New York Times
“Talking Fashion” Vogue
"Bookmarks” Nylon
“Rush and Malloy” New York Daily News
“Editorials/Letters” The New York Times
German Elle