- 25
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Description
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Untitled
- signed and dated 1981 on the reverse
- acrylic, oilstick and chalk on paper
- 149.9 by 137cm.; 59 by 54in.
Provenance
Sale: Christie’s, New York, Contemporary Evening Sale, 15 November 2001, Lot 310
Private Collection, New York
Sale: Christie’s, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 8 February 2007, Lot 20
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Literature
Condition
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
Executed in the same vibrant blue as the larger crown, an eight-spoked wheel, perhaps symbolic of the Wheel of Fortune, floats alongside a diagrammatic representation of a skelly court, a street game similar to hopscotch which Basquiat would have encountered during his childhood in Brooklyn. Untitled, in common with other works from this early phase of Basquiat’s career, reveals the influence of New York’s frenetic metropolitan environment. Jeffrey Deitch explains that: “The New York street is one of Basquiat’s most essential inspirations. The work of 1981 reflects the visual and sonic experience of the streets of the East Village and Lower East Side where he was living and the Brooklyn streets where he grew up” (Jeffrey Deitch, ‘1981: The Studio of the Street’ in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Deitch Projects, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981: The Studio of the Street, 2006, p. 13).
1981 was a year of seminal importance for Basquiat, marking his elevation from graffiti artist to a celebrated and widely feted member of New York’s cultural scene. Deitch states that it was in this year that Basquiat “made the transition from a profusely talented and promising artist working on the street to a world-class painter, poised to become one of the most influential artists of his time” (Jeffrey Deitch in: ibid., pp. 10-13). Basquiat first came to wider attention following his inclusion in the New York/New Wave exhibition at P.S.1 in Long Island in February 1981. A show followed in Modena in May that year at the request of gallerist Emilio Mazzoli; but it was Annina Nosei’s decision to invite the artist to take part in a group show at her gallery in September that was to have the greatest impact on Basquiat’s early career trajectory. Nosei allowed the artist to use a room beneath her gallery as a studio, which enabled Basquiat to begin working on a larger scale and with a wider variety of materials than previously. A truly remarkable year for Basquiat was crowned by the release of René Ricard’s Radiant Child in December, in which Ricard wrote eulogistically of Basquiat’s early work: “The elegance of Twombly is there but from the same source (graffiti) and so is the brut of the young Dubuffet” (René Ricard, ‘The Radiant Child,’ quoted in: ibid., p. 242). Untitled was created during this year of profound artistic advancement and progress: a time that can arguably be considered a golden period of development for Basquiat, a young artist as yet relatively unaffected by the ravages of fame and celebrity, at the very beginning of a highly promising and ground-breaking artistic career.