Painted in 1984, Untitled exemplifies Jean-Michel Basquiat’s raw, gestural power, painterly prowess and his extraordinary ability to unify seemingly disparate themes within a single, electrified surface. Showcasing his distinctive iconography—including the crown, textual devices, animal imagery, and references to popular culture—the painting is richly imbued with biographical symbolism and encapsulates many of the core themes that define Basquiat’s revolutionary practice. Combining collage, acrylic, and spray paint, Untitled serves as an investigation into texture, color, and meaning, seamlessly fusing Basquiat’s signature visual language with urgent social and political commentary.

“I collected very early on… Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment.”

—David Bowie, 1998

Formerly part of the collection of David Bowie, one of the most influential cultural icons of his generation, this important painting boasts stellar provenance, having been first owned by perhaps Basquiat’s most important champion, Bruno Bischofberger. Untitled was painted in 1984 in Kungsträdgården, Stockholm, where Basquiat was working in a temporary studio belonging to Norwegian artist Knut Swane. During his time in Sweden, Basquiat created an important group of paintings with the assistance of gallerist Stellan Holm, whom he had first met earlier that year in New York. Of these, only five works—including the present painting—feature Basquiat’s iconic crown motif. Holm would later become a close associate of both Basquiat and Andy Warhol, underscoring his presence at a pivotal moment in Basquiat’s career. Untitled belongs to this important suite of works, others of which were gifted to close friends and collaborators such as Francesco, Alba, Nina, and Chiara Clemente.

Leading up to 1984, Basquiat had held solo exhibitions in New York and Tokyo, was included in the Whitney Biennial, and had begun collaborations with Clemente and Warhol. These milestones, combined with the independence of renting his own studio from Warhol at 57 Great Jones Street in the summer of 1983, resulted in a period of rich artistic output, career validation, and international recognition. While his genius was increasingly recognized by the institutional art world, Basquiat’s work remained fundamentally rooted in the alternative street culture of 1980s New York, of which he was both a product and a pioneer. Among the first to successfully transpose the rebellious spirit of graffiti into the realm of fine art, Basquiat preserved its immediacy and ideological urgency. Untitled exemplifies this duality. Melding the spontaneous gestures of spray paint with the physicality of thick acrylic, the painting bridges the divide between the unrefined and the refined, the ephemeral and the enduring.

“Basquiat’s great strength is his ability to merge his absorption of imagery from the streets, the newspapers, and TV with the spiritualism of his Haitian heritage, injecting both into a marvelously intuitive understanding of the language of modern painting.”

—Jeffrey Deitch

Basquiat’s voice was deeply shaped by his heritage and environment. Of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, and coming of age in a society still deeply divided along racial lines, Basquiat consistently gave space to those traditionally excluded from historical narratives. Among his most powerful motifs is the Black figure, which asserts a proud, defiant presence in Untitled with its almond-shaped red eyes and playfully open mouth. The artist’s early encounters with museums left a lasting impression—he observed that art history overwhelmingly privileged white subjects, relegating Black figures to the margins, if they appeared at all. Through his portraits of Black athletes, musicians, and cultural icons, Basquiat redefined the canon, elevating those once overlooked to positions of protagonists and heroes.

In Untitled, a disembodied head floats in an ambiguous space, punctuated by the kind of oversized yellow crown that first appeared in Basquiat’s 1981 homage to Pablo Picasso, Red Kings. In a 1983 interview with art world figure Henry Geldzahler, Basquiat famously described his artistic subject matter as "Royalty, heroism, and the streets," a characterization that resonates powerfully in the present painting.ⁱ The crown in Untitled embodies this ethos, asserting both triumph and vulnerability in a realm where cultural power is constantly negotiated. Francesco Clemente’s reflection on Basquiat’s crowns further illuminates their symbolic weight: “Jean Michel’s crown has three peaks, for his three royal lineages: the poet, the musician, the great boxing champion. Jean measured his skill against all he deemed strong, without prejudice as to their taste or age.”ⁱⁱ

Dominating the lefthand side of Untitled is a column of four crocodile heads, drawn across various collaged panels. Juxtaposed against the human head on the right—which visually functions as a mask with its cut-out eyes—these reptilian forms evoke Voodoo imagery and allude to Basquiat’s Haitian heritage. At the same time, the crocodile motif may also reference the emblematic logo of the men’s clothing brand Izod Lacoste, which reached peak popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Characteristic of Basquiat’s ability to hybridize symbols, the crocodiles in Untitled operate as cryptic ciphers, merging classical references with elements of popular culture. Variations of this motif also appear in his collaborative work with Andy Warhol, such as Crocodile, 1981.

Basquiat’s repetition of words and imagery in Untitled lends both symbolic and hypnotic weight—echoing the strategies of Warhol while infusing his paintings with additional political charge. The inclusion of the black tire in this painting hints at broader narratives: during World War II, rubber became a militarized commodity in the United States, leading to widespread rationing and civilian scarcity. Yet the history of rubber stretches deeper, its extraction intimately tied to colonial violence, labor abuses, and environmental degradation—concerns Basquiat channels with piercing clarity. The repeated word “CARBON” further alludes to the material’s fraught positionality, being simultaneously ubiquitous in nature and highly coveted in its crystalline form.

In the words of Richard D. Marshall, “Basquiat’s paintings of 1982-1985 reveal a confluence of his many interests and energies, and their actual contents—the words—describe the subjects of importance to Basquiat. He continually selected and injected into his works words which held charged references and meanings—particularly to his deep-rooted concerns about race, human rights, the creation of power and wealth, and the control and valuation of natural, elements, animals, and produce—all this in addition to references to his ethnic heritage [and] popular culture.”ⁱⁱⁱ In Untitled, these concerns coalesce into a vivid, almost frenetic visual language that demands active engagement from the viewer.

 
ⁱJean-Michel Basquiat, quoted in Henry Geldzahler, "From the Subways to Soho," Interview Magazine, January 1983, online.
ⁱⁱFrancesco Clemente, quoted in Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, “Heroes and Saints,” Jean Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time, 2015, press release.
ⁱⁱⁱRichard D. Marshall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1992, pp. 18-21.