Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. He gained popularity as a graffiti artist in New York City, then as a leading 1980's Neo-expressionist artist. Basquiat's paintings continue to influence modern day artists and still command high prices.
Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960. His mother was Puerto Rican and his father was Haitian. Because of his parents' nationalities, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish, and English. In 1977, when he was 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti art on slum buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the infamous signature of 'SAMO'.
Basquiat first started to gain recognition as an artist in June 1980, when he participated in The Times Square Show. In 1981 poet/art critic Rene Ricard published the article "The Radiant Child'' in Artforum magazine. During the next few years, he exhibited his works around New York alongside artists Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger. He gained international success and recognition through gallery owners/patrons Annina Nosei, Vrej Baghoomian, Mary Boone and Bruno Bischofgerger.
In 1982, Basquiat became friends with pop artist Andy Warhol and the two made a number of collaborative works. They also painted together, influencing each others' work. Some speculated that Andy Warhol was merely using Basquiat for some of his techniques and insight.
Basquiat's art career is known for his three broad, yet overlapping styles. In the earliest period, from 1980 to late 1982, Basquiat used painter-like gestures on canvas often showing skeletal figures and mask-like faces that expressed his obsession with mortality. Other frequently depicted imagery such as automobiles, buildings, police, children's sidewalk games and graffiti came from his experience painting on the city streets. A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multipanel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surfaces dense with writing, collages and seemingly unrelated images. The final period, from about 1986 to Basquiat's death in 1988, displays a new type of figurative depiction in a new style with different symbols and content from new sources.
At the height of his popularity, Basquiat received a ridiculous commission request from Leona Helmsley. He was given $1,000,000 for one (unfinished) piece. Her only request was to be able to watch him work on it. Jean Michel took her commission. He set up his studio for her. He catered to her immense wealth, which he despised. He allowed her to view his work in progress, which consisted of an enormous raw canvas, then he made a very bold statement. He simply splashed blue paint on the canvas and urinated on it. Across its middle he scrawled in bold letters the word PIG.
Up until 2002, the highest mark that was paid for an original work of Basquiat's was $3,302,500 (1998). On May 14th 2002 Basquiat's Profit I (measuring 86.5" by 157.5"), owned by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, was put up for auction at Christie's. Profit I sold for $5,509,500. On May 15th 2007, an untitled Basquiat piece from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for $14.6 million.
Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960. His mother was Puerto Rican and his father was Haitian. Because of his parents' nationalities, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish, and English. In 1977, when he was 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti art on slum buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the infamous signature of 'SAMO'.
Basquiat first started to gain recognition as an artist in June 1980, when he participated in The Times Square Show. In 1981 poet/art critic Rene Ricard published the article "The Radiant Child'' in Artforum magazine. During the next few years, he exhibited his works around New York alongside artists Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger. He gained international success and recognition through gallery owners/patrons Annina Nosei, Vrej Baghoomian, Mary Boone and Bruno Bischofgerger.
In 1982, Basquiat became friends with pop artist Andy Warhol and the two made a number of collaborative works. They also painted together, influencing each others' work. Some speculated that Andy Warhol was merely using Basquiat for some of his techniques and insight.
Basquiat's art career is known for his three broad, yet overlapping styles. In the earliest period, from 1980 to late 1982, Basquiat used painter-like gestures on canvas often showing skeletal figures and mask-like faces that expressed his obsession with mortality. Other frequently depicted imagery such as automobiles, buildings, police, children's sidewalk games and graffiti came from his experience painting on the city streets. A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multipanel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surfaces dense with writing, collages and seemingly unrelated images. The final period, from about 1986 to Basquiat's death in 1988, displays a new type of figurative depiction in a new style with different symbols and content from new sources.
At the height of his popularity, Basquiat received a ridiculous commission request from Leona Helmsley. He was given $1,000,000 for one (unfinished) piece. Her only request was to be able to watch him work on it. Jean Michel took her commission. He set up his studio for her. He catered to her immense wealth, which he despised. He allowed her to view his work in progress, which consisted of an enormous raw canvas, then he made a very bold statement. He simply splashed blue paint on the canvas and urinated on it. Across its middle he scrawled in bold letters the word PIG.
Up until 2002, the highest mark that was paid for an original work of Basquiat's was $3,302,500 (1998). On May 14th 2002 Basquiat's Profit I (measuring 86.5" by 157.5"), owned by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, was put up for auction at Christie's. Profit I sold for $5,509,500. On May 15th 2007, an untitled Basquiat piece from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for $14.6 million.
