Ricky Powell

A photo of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, by Ricky Powell.

• Ricky Powell (American, 1961-2021).
• C print photograph.
• Hand-signed by Powell in lower right corner from an edition of unknown size.
• This work is presented unframed.

Claiming, “You can never run out of pictures to take; all you gotta do is leave your house,” Ricky Powell has been documenting artists, celebrities, models, hip hop rappers, and people on the streets of his native New York City since 1985. The self-proclaimed “original NYC street photographer” used his bold personality and beat-up Minolta to get behind-the-scenes access to groups like the Beastie Boys and Run DMC, with whom he toured, and to such downtown artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, to name only a handful of his subjects. Publications, clothing, and lifestyle brands took notice of his intimate, candid color and black-and-white shots, and commissions for the New York Times and Puma, among many others, followed. From his base in Greenwich Village, Powell continues to roam the streets, documenting his city through the people who call it home.

From a young age Haring enjoyed drawing, especially Disney characters and other cartoons. He initially wanted to become a commercial artist but after a year at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, Haring dropped, moved to New York City and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Haring immediately felt connected to the thriving alternative arts scene happening downtown in the late 1970s and became friends with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf.

Haring’s first major works were his subway drawings. Haring produced a large number of these public works between 1980 and 1985, integrating his motifs outlined figures into everyday public space in a way that directly engaged its viewers.

Haring's 1st solo exhibition was held at Westbeth Painters Space in 1981 and a celebrated show debuted at the historic Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York the following year.

Throughout the 1980s, Haring was committed to democratizing the art experience and along with paintings, he also created theater sets, billboards, murals, advertising campaigns and even a line of Swatch watches. In 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo, selling apparel, posters and toys bearing his drawings. This was a controversial move, as many galleries criticized Haring for “de-valuing” the art object while others, such as Andy Warhol, championed Haring’s insistence on making art accessible and affordable. Pop Shop was highly influential to contemporary crossovers of art and merchandise that are now so dominant, as in the work of Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, KAWS and Takashi Murakami.

In addition to this ideology of accessibility, Haring was also very socially engaged and used his striking imagery to promote awareness of various political and social campaigns. His many notable public works included a mural on the western side of the Berlin Wall, the Crack is Wack mural in New York, and a mural for the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and used his presence in the arts community to raise awareness of the crisis. In 1989, a year before his death, he established the Keith Haring Foundation, whose mission is to raise funds for AIDS organizations and children’s literacy and arts programs.

Since his death in 1990, Haring has become one of the most widely-recognized and celebrated artists of the 20th century.

Obsessed with celebrity, consumer culture, and mechanical reproduction, Pop Art king, Andy Warhol created some of the 20th century’s most iconic images. Warhol was widely influenced by popular & consumer culture, with this being evident in some of his most famous works: 32 Campbell's soup cans, Brillo pad box sculptures, and portraits of Marilyn Monroe & Mick Jagger, for example. Rejecting the standard painting and sculpting modes of his era, Warhol embraced silk-screen printmaking to achieve his characteristic hard edges and flat areas of color. The artist mentored Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and continues to influence contemporary art around the world: His most bold successors include Richard Prince, Takashi Murakami, and Jeff Koons. Warhol has been the subject of exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou, among other institutions.