Jean-Michel Basquiat

Background

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and his parents were of Puerto Rican and African-American descent. Raised a Catholic, Basquiat was taken to art museums as a child and was soon enrolled in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. While attending St. Ann’s School, Basquiat met Marc Prozzo. The duo created a children’s book written by Basquiat and illustrated by Prozzo. Basquiat’s parents separated in 1968, and his father took him to Puerto Rico in 1974, returning to Brooklyn two years later.

Back in New York, Basquiat met Al Diaz at City-As-School, and the pair formed SAMO as a joke. However, the duo soon attracted attention for their graffiti and were featured by “The Village Voice” in 1978. In 1980, Basquiat participated in the multi-artist exhibition held at the “The Times Square Show,” and shortly thereafter sold his first painting, ‘Cadillac Moon,’ to Debbie Harry for $200. At age 27, he took part in the German art festival, “Documenta in Kassel,” as its youngest artist. He followed with a one-man show in Zurich and opened a solo exhibition in the East Village. In 1983, Basquiat was invited to the ‘Whitney Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art.’ By the time he appeared in the “New York Times Magazine” in 1985, Basquiat was earning $1.4 million annually. With fame came emotional instability and excessive drug use, but still, in 1986, he exhibited over 60 works of art at the Kestner-Gesellschaft institution in Hannover, which made him the youngest artist to achieve this feat.

When Basquiat died from a heroin overdose in 1988, his work began to increase in value. In 2017, a work from 1982 he had named “Untitled,” sold for $110.5 million, and became one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased. Basquiat was laid to rest at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.