Jean-Michel Basquiat - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, November 16, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Jan Erik Löwenadler, New York; Massimo Audiello, 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.

    View More Works

192

Untitled (Famous Negro Athletes Series)

1981

Oilstick on paper.

10 7/8 x 7 in. (27.6 x 17.8 cm).

This work is accompanied by a
certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee of the Estate of
Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Estimate
$25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for $57,400

Contemporary Art Part II

16 Nov 2007, 10am & 2pm
New York