Jean-Michel Basquiat

His works, characterized by intense strokes and vibrant colors, address social, political, and cultural issues in a unique and impactful way.

By learning more about Jean-Michel Basquiat, you'll discover not only a talented artist but also a symbol of resistance and artistic expression.

Basquiat

Basquiat was an important visual artist who gained notoriety  as a poet and musician, but it was on the streets that he would become famous, initially with his graffiti, later distinguishing himself as a neo-expressionist artist.

Inspired by icons of Greek, Roman, and African art, French poetry, jazz, boxing, basketball, and street life, he emerged from New York's punk scene as a graffiti artist and quickly entered the international art gallery circuit as one of the most celebrated artists of all time.

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in New York City, United States, on December 22, 1960.  Son of Gerard Jean-Baptiste Basquiat and Mathilde Andrada of Puerto Rican origin. His father was a former interior minister in Haiti.

His mother always encouraged him to pursue a career as a visual artist. His talent was honed by her, as she stimulated him to draw, create paintings, and interact with everything related to the arts.  She recounted that from childhood, young Jean enjoyed drawing.

In the late 1970s, when Basquiat was 17, he and a friend, Al Diaz, began doing graffiti on abandoned buildings  in Manhattan. They used a kind of signature to finish, with the following description: ‘SAMO’ or ‘SAMO shit’, which was an abbreviation of the expression "same old shit".

In some graffiti, words filled almost the entire space, leaving few images. Other times, he repeated the same words over and over, achieving an almost hypnotic effect.

This was a form of manifestation that sparked much curiosity among people, the desire to understand the graffiti artists' objectives. However, this artistic manifestation concluded with the inscription “SAMO is dead”  (SAMO is dead) graffitied on the walls of buildings in New York's SoHo.

In 1981, at the age of twenty, he stopped doing graffiti and began painting on canvases and selling his artworks in SoHo galleries, quickly becoming one of the most talented artists of his generation.

From 1982, Basquiat was frequently seen in the company of celebrated artists, such as the singer Madonna, who was his girlfriend at the time, and not yet widely known artistically.

During one of his encounters with Warhol, Basquiat asked an assistant to photograph the two artists together. As soon as it was done, Basquiat ran off, declining his friend's plea to stay for lunch.

Less than two hours later, Basquiat returned with a large painting of the two artists together in his typical primitive style. That day's encounter proved to be the perfect chance for the younger artist to impress the older one.  The event is remembered in Andy's diary, where he recorded: "he went home and in two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together ... he continued “Oh, I'm so jealous!” Andy exclaimed: "He's faster than me!"

The news of the unexpected death of his friend Andy Warhol in February 1987, who had supported him so much in his career, deeply affected him. He channeled his grief into an explosion of creativity.

The following year, in 1988, Basquiat died at the age of 27 from an overdose of ecstasy and cocaine. He had produced approximately 2,000 pieces in seven years.

It is estimated that over 80% of the artist's works are in the hands of private collectors rather than museums.

After his death, the prices of his works soared, and museums were unable to keep up with their sales.

This canvas is the artist's most successful work. It depicts a skull-like face. It was sold at auction in 2017, breaking a record of US$110.5 million (equivalent to approximately 99.3 million euros) at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

Riding with Death is one of Basquiat's most expressive paintings.  Here he achieves a scarcity and purity of techniques possibly never accomplished  in any other of his works.

Layered painting...

To represent The Fisherman, the painting was created in layers, allowing the central figure to be added at the end.  This can be seen especially in the face of the human figure, which is depicted in skeleton form, crowned with layers of green, gray, pink, black, and red.