Provenance
Private Collection, London
Exhibited
Fire Under the Ashes (from Picasso to Basquiat): Valencia, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, 5 May – 28 August 2005; Paris, Musée Maillol-Fondation Dina Vierny, 8 October 2005 – 14 February 2006
Literature
E. Navarra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 2000, vol. II, no. 10, p. 230 (illustrated in colour)
Catalogue Essay
Jean-Michel Basquiat regularly celebrated in his work the anonymous black man. There are only a handful of paintings, however, in which he explicitly depicted himself. The present lot, his 1985 self-portrait, is therefore a rare, mature autobiographical work. In it, he presents himself as a haunted, dread-locked and ghostly figure with hollow eyes. Outlined in red, Basquiat’s powerfully expressive bust is all the more stunning for its simplicity of execution with its economy of means using simple lines and forms capturing the face and upper body of the artist. The flat and frontal depiction of the mask-like head is energized by ragged brushstrokes of dripping black pigment and smeared oil stick. Conveying tremendous fear and anger, Basquiat’s torso, which lacks any limbs, is savagely torn from the rest of his body below the chest. In its honest, even brutal self-portrayal, this self-portrait is reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear. It is an extraordinarily disarming portrayal of the 25-year-old African-American artist who by this point of his tragically brief career had already risen to the very top of the art world only to find himself consumed by a crippling sense of paranoia as well as a debilitating drug habit which would lead to his eventual fatal overdose. In September 1983, Basquiat’s friend and fellow African American New York graffiti artist, Michael Stewart, while vandalizing a station, was arrested by a group of white subway transit police officers and beaten into a coma. Stewart died of his wounds and the ensuing trial and acquittal of the officers by an all-white jury sparked a debate of police brutality and stirred up considerable racial tension. Basquiat, already very unstable through excessive drug use, grew even more paranoid, believing that he could be the next victim. His rarefied position as a black male in an all-white art world made him suspicious of everyone in his immediate circle and his paintings began to reflect a much darker mood in which death and martyrdom, expressed in a simple, economical aesthetic, would take centre stage. Self-Portrait can therefore be understood as Basquiat’s religious diptych, his contemporary Byzantine icon. It comprises two hinged tablets, on the left panel of which he depicts himself as a Christ-like martyr figure while the other panel is a magnificently ornamental found-wooden construction covered with shimmering metallic bottle caps and pure swathes of yellow, red and green paint. This is a scene from the urban gospel which tells of a tormented artist torn between his reality as an African American artist manipulated by the white art world and his ideal as a martyr for the cause of the black man in American society. Highly personal and reflective, Basquiat’s splintered sense of self is evident in the built-up angst and aggression of his self-portrait and the tranquil and peaceful beauty of the abstracted right-hand panel. It is a contemporary tabernacle, a reliquary of hope and loss, in which Basquiat communicates with himself exercising his inner most demons.
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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8

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Self-Portrait

1985
Acrylic, oil stick, crown cork and bottle caps on wood.
142 × 153 × 15 cm (55 7/8 × 60 1/4 × 5 7/8 in).

Estimate
£2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡

Sold for £2,057,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

27 June
London

1
Urs Fischer
Oh, Sad, I See
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000
Sold for £145,250
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2
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
Sold for £145,250
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3
Glenn Ligon
Stranger in the Village #8
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000
Sold for £253,250
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4
Ugo Rondinone
Get up girl a sun is running the world
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £541,250
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5
This lot is no longer available.
6
Urs Fischer
Thank You Fuck You
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £657,250
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7
Wade Guyton
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £205,250
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8
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Self-Portrait
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,057,250
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9
Beatriz Milhazes
O Moderno
Estimate £650,000 - 750,000 ♠
Sold for £713,250
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10
Tony Cragg
The Fanatics
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
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11
Kelley Walker
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
Sold for £145,250
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12
Sean Scully
Small Horizontal Robe
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡♠
Sold for £253,250
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13
Ilya Kabakov
A Solemn Painting
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £241,250
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14
Cecily Brown
I Will Not Paint Any More Boring Leaves (2)
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
Sold for £529,250
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15
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £577,250
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16
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000
Sold for £373,250
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17
Alighiero Boetti
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £193,250
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18
Rosemarie Trockel
Untitled (Vogelköpfe)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £241,250
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19
Beatriz Milhazes
O Conflicto
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
Sold for £181,250
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20
Damien Hirst
Confession
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ♠
Sold for £690,850
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21
Mark Tansey
Library (of Babylon)
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,161,250
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22
Ugo Rondinone
11.September 2008
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £121,250
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23
Peter Fischli and David Weiss
Brush Pot
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000
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24
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £97,250
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25
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ♠
Sold for £657,250
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26
Victor Vasarely
Binaire FF
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
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27
Andreas Gursky
Heidelberg Ost
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
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28
Heinz Mack
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £109,250
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29
Marino Marini
Cavallo
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £421,250
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30
Thomas Struth
Pergamon Museum IV, Berlin
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
Sold for £109,250
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31
Andy Warhol
Muhammad Ali
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000
Sold for £217,250
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32
George Condo
Don Diego
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000
Sold for £205,250
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

27 June London

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Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Jean-Michel Basquiat

8

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Self-Portrait

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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27 June
London