Jean-Michel Basquiat - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Monday, June 25, 2018 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Bill Stelling, New York (gifted by the artist in 1982 on occasion of Basquiat's one-man show at Stelling's Fun Gallery, New York)
    Sotheby's, London, 27 June 1996, lot 257
    Private Collection, New York

  • Artist Biography

    Jean-Michel Basquiat

    American • 1960 - 1988

    One of the most famous American artists of all time, Jean-Michel Basquiat first gained notoriety as a subversive graffiti-artist and street poet in the late 1970s. Operating under the pseudonym SAMO, he emblazoned the abandoned walls of the city with his unique blend of enigmatic symbols, icons and aphorisms. A voracious autodidact, by 1980, at 22-years of age, Basquiat began to direct his extraordinary talent towards painting and drawing. His powerful works brilliantly captured the zeitgeist of the 1980s New York underground scene and catapulted Basquiat on a dizzying meteoric ascent to international stardom that would only be put to a halt by his untimely death in 1988.

    Basquiat's iconoclastic oeuvre revolves around the human figure. Exploiting the creative potential of free association and past experience, he created deeply personal, often autobiographical, images by drawing liberally from such disparate fields as urban street culture, music, poetry, Christian iconography, African-American and Aztec cultural histories and a broad range of art historical sources.

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137

Venus

dedicated 'to Bill' on the reverse
Xerox and oil stick on canvas
30.2 x 22.8 cm (11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in.)
Executed in 1982.

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for £150,000

Contact Specialist
Tamila Kerimova
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4065
tkerimova@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 26 June 2018