Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in New York City in 1960 and passed away in 1988. Raised in Brooklyn, he left home at the age of fifteen and ventured into the streets, with no formal artistic training. A self-taught artist, Basquiat quickly became known for his street art, using the alias SAMO to sign his poetic and often cryptic graffiti across downtown Manhattan.
In 1981, he shed the SAMO identity and transitioned to painting, initially on reclaimed materials before moving to canvas. His early work incorporated a variety of found materials, reflecting his urban environment. By 1982, his work gained significant attention, coinciding with the rise of Neo-Expressionism, and soon became highly sought after.
Basquiat’s style is a unique fusion of drawing, painting, history, and poetry. His works combine graffiti techniques such as Magic Marker and spray enamel with fine art mediums like oil and acrylic paints, collage, and oil sticks. His paintings often create a tense dynamic between opposing forces expression and intellect, spontaneity and control, savagery and humour, urban life and primitivism. His works deliver sharp commentary on race, culture, and society, filled with vivid colours, forceful figures, and mask-like faces. The canvases are dense with images, symbols, and words that blur the lines between abstraction and representation, creating a fragmented and energetic visual language that mirrors the chaotic pulse of the city.
Throughout his career, Basquiat’s work was exhibited in major institutions worldwide. Notable exhibitions include The Modena Paintings at Fondation Beyeler in Basel (2023), King Pleasure in New York and Los Angeles (2022), Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the Brant Foundation in New York (2018), Boom for Real at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (2017), and a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005. His artwork is held in prestigious collections, including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The Broad in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.