Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Guide to Basquiat’s Life and Artworks

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was a Black American neo-Expressionist and a defining force in the New York City art scene. Basquiat’s work was political, critiquing power structures and racial inequities. As a teenager, Basquiat was obsessed with the idea of stardom, and he went on to embody a new level of celebrity in the art world.

Jean-Michel Basquiat had a short and prolific career that elevated the art form of street art and greatly influenced modern and contemporary art. In 2010, Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) sold at auction for $110.5 million, a record-breaking sale that cemented his place as one of the most recognized U.S. artists.

• Early life: Basquiat was born in 1960 in Brooklyn, New York. His father was from Haiti and his mother was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. At a young age, he enjoyed drawing with his mother, who enrolled him as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and encouraged his creativity. At age seven, Basquiat was hit by a car and hospitalized. While he was in recovery, his mom gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, which informed his interest in the human body and later influenced his art.
• SAMO: In the late 1970s, Basquiat developed a character named SAMO (which stood for “same old shit”), who peddles a fake religion. With his high school classmate Al Diaz, a fellow graffitist, Basquiat spray-painted SAMO’s epigrams on the subway walls in lower Manhattan. An article about SAMO published in the Village Voice led to a falling out between Diaz and Basquiat, who subsequently spray-painted “SAMO is dead” on buildings in the neighborhood of SoHo.
• Club scene: Basquiat became a fixture of New York’s downtown club scene, performing with his band Gray at night and selling hand-painted T-shirts, paintings, postcards, and collages in Washington Square Park during the day. His club connections included artist Keith Haring, who wrote a eulogy for SAMO.
• First public show: SAMO generated attention and led to Basquiat’s first public group show, the Times Square Show, in 1980. He quickly rose to fame in the ’80s, and he became close friends with Andy Warhol and appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine in 1985 for a story on celebrity artists titled New Art, New Money.
• Early death: Throughout his explosive career, the young Black artist dealt with the racism of the white art world and lived with drug addiction. In 1988, at the age of 27, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work drew heavily from his street art beginnings and exemplified neo-Expressionism, which was characterized by rough textures and intense subjects. Basquiat’s style often involved the following characteristics:

1. 1. Symbols: Basquiat’s works feature the copyright symbol, dollar signs, crowns, and corporate logos.
2. 2. Text: Basquiat was interested in poetry, hip-hop, and rap, and he married text with his paintings through repeated and crossed-out words.
3. 3. Graffiti: Basquiat used spray paint throughout his career and drew inspiration from many graffiti artists.
4. 4. Heroic figures: Basquiat used images of kings, athletes, and musicians to recognize Black heroes in his work.
5. 5. Dichotomies: Basquiat’s work often explored dichotomies such as poverty and wealth, outer and inner experiences, and segregation and integration.

Although his career was cut short, Jean-Michel Basquiat was prolific during his lifetime. These three paintings show the progression of his style over just a few years:

1. 1. Untitled (1981): Thought to be a form of self-portrait, this skull on a blue and red background shows Basquiat’s way with color, while the skull itself toes the boundary between external and internal anatomy. This painting was part of Basquiat’s first solo show.
2. 2. In the Wings (1986): This painting of jazz saxophonist Lester Young is one of several paying homage to important figures of Black culture. It features bright colors and abstraction of the human figure.
3. 3. Riding With Death (1988): Painted shortly before his death, this piece features a dark figure riding atop a white skeleton. The background is uncharacteristically empty.

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