Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean Michel Basquiat, rose out of the underground art scene of New York during the late 1970s, with his expressive colour palette and rough, often violent depictions of his subject matters. Across his oeuvre, Basquiat focused on the dichotomies between wealth and poverty, integration and segregation, and was deeply rooted in his own Caribbean heritage.

The love for art was instilled in Basquiat from an early age, attending local museums with his mother and enrolling as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It was only working under the moniker SAMO - the tag joined short phrases, which were poetic and satirical advertising slogans, spray painted on the streets of downtown Manhattan - with Al Diaz however, that his works started drawing attention.

By the early 1980s, spurred by the New-Expressionist art boom, his works were being exhibited in galleries and museums. Basquiat first publicly exhibited in a group show in a vacant Times Square building in June 1980. His works were featured alongside other artistic geniuses of the period such as Keith Haring, Kiki Smith and Jenny Holzer, and marked a turning point for Basquiat, leading to his first solo exhibition in 1982.

In the short but prolific life, Jean Michel-Basquiat created around 1500 drawings, over 600 paintings, many sculptures and mixed media works. 

Basquiat produced an unprecedented visual language that bridged cultures and alternative histories . His paintings retained a powerful tension between artistic beauty whilst providing commentary on the harsh realities of race, culture and society which are still of paramount importance today. Since his premature death at the age of 27, his works have increased in value. In 2017, Untitled (1982), sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s; the highest price ever paid at auction for an artwork by an American artist in a public sale.