Jean-Michel Basquiat Mug : Glenn (1985)

Main works

"Boxer", "Hollywood Africans", "Bird of Money", "Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump", "History of the Black People" (Le Grand Spectacle), "Charles The First", "God Law".

Artistic movements

Graffiti, Neo-Expressionism.

Inspiration, influence

Primitive art, graphic design, Andy Warhol and his awareness of multiculturalism spanning across several continents.

His contemporaries

Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, and Andy Warhol. Although Basquiat's career was short, his years were full of encounters and exchanges.

To keep in mind

Basquiat is first and foremost an expression, a voice that goes beyond mere pictorial activity. It is then a period when new art found a market and media exposure like never before. "Fulgurant" is undoubtedly the word that best defines Basquiat, his painting, and his journey. A child of the Caribbean, who grew up in New York, inheritor of street art, he revealed himself in the early 80s with a new and highly emblematic expressionism, harking back to primal arts. Between creation and a taste for the "everything and right now," Basquiat bypasses all stages, establishes himself as the first major painter of the underground at 25, and dies at 27 from an overdose. Basquiat is finally a unique, incredible, raw talent, far from the gloss of Art schools.

To go further

In 1996, Julian Schnabel, director, painter, and friend of Basquiat, dedicated a film/biopic to him, with a very good Jeffrey Wright in the title role.