After Jean-Michel Basquiat

A folding announcement card to Jean-Michel Basquiat at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery New York: 10/21 to 11/25, 1989.

• After Jean Michel Basquiat (American, 1960-1988).
• Published by Vrej Baghoomian Gallery, New York, 1989.
• Pictured on front side is an image of Basquiat's iconic, 'Red Warrior.'
• Unsigned from an edition of unknown size.
• Off-set printed gallery announcement.

Jean-Michel Basquiat rose to success during the 1980s. Basquiat’s paintings are largely responsible for elevating graffiti artists into the realm of the New York gallery scene. His spray-painted crowns and scribbled words referenced everything from his Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage, to political issues, pop-culture icons, and Biblical verse. The gestural marks and expressive nature of his work not only aligned him with the street art of Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, but also the Neo-Expressionists Julian Schnabel and David Salle. “If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you've got to realize that influence is not influence,” he said of his process. After quickly rising to fame in the early 1980s, Basquiat was befriended by many celebrities and artists, including Andy Warhol, with whom he made several collaborative works. At only 27, his troubles with fame and drug addiction led to his tragic death from a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988 in New York, NY. The Whitney Museum of American Art held the artist’s first retrospective from October 1992 to February 1993.