Keith Haring - Editions & Works on Paper New York Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | Phillips
  • In 1988, a small manmade island off the Dutch coast was animated with an immersive and monumental outdoor contemporary art exhibition – fifty massive 2x3 meter screenprinted flags waving in the breeze. The project was envisioned by the Gran Pavese Foundation, led by Thérèse Legierse, Peter van Beveren, and Ralph van Hesse. The foundation took their name from the Italian nautical phrase gran pavese which refers to the “dressing overall” of a voyaging ship, wherein the vessel is elaborately strung with maritime signal flags for ceremonial or celebratory purposes. Fifty internationally recognized artists were invited to design their own interpretation of a flag, with no thematic concept to unite them all beyond the medium, size and freedom to apply their own imagery and methodology to the project. 

     

    The U.S. Navy patrol boat USS Isabel (PY-10) at Hankow, China, dressed overall in honor of the coronation of King George VI of England, May 14, 1937. Image: Naval History and Heritage Command, U.S. Navy Photo, NH 83530

    While many artists chosen for the Gran Pavese project were already engaging with the varied iconography and ideology of flags in their practice, the notion of creating a flag itself offered a distinctive set of challenges and possibilities. Like a painting on canvas without a stretcher, the works would eventually embody a certain fluidity, not hanging stagnant on a gallery wall, but billowing freely in the air for all to see. Artists also needed to consider the histories and multifarious meanings endowed in the symbolism of flags such as existence, origin, distinction, authority, territory, loyalty, glory, belief, and identity, amongst other philosophical conceits. With their demonstrated grasps of the extensive significance of the flag form, each of the fifty artists rose to the occasion of the project to create flags that represented a global amalgamation of unique artistic visions, socio-political convictions, and conceptual frameworks – a staggering gran pavese for the contemporary era.  

     

    A video overview of the Gran Pavese project, including footage of the printing of the flags and their display on Neeltje Jans. © Gran Pavese.

     

    Due to both the individual creative success of each artist and the astounding experience of viewing the outdoor exhibition in its totality, the project attracted crowds of visitors to the island of Neeltje Jans. Following the Netherlands installation, the project, in all its beauty and scale, travelled the world, gracing the river borders of Frankfurt, the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Great Wall of China, and beyond. The international tour of 50 monumental flags paid homage to the Gran Pavese Foundation’s seafaring namesake, their various visuals and symbolisms representing a grand celebration of the international art community.  

    "I don't think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further." —Keith Haring

    Keith Haring’s Gran Pavese flag features one of his most enduring motifs: that of the three-eyed smiling face. The iconic imagery in fact emerged not purposefully, but by accident, while Haring was painting a mural on the walls of Annina Nosei Gallery in 1981. Haring intended to draw a typical face with two eyes, but the process went awry. As he described, “using a ladder, I had climbed up and put an eye up on the wall. But when I got back down the ladder, I realized that it was way off to the side. If I was going to put up another eye, there was either going to be way too much space in between or it was going to be totally leaning toward one side. All of the sudden, I just had this brilliant idea that if I put a third eye, it would fill the space perfectly. So I did this thing on the wall with three eyes, and all of a sudden it became this profound thing.” (Jeffrey Deitch, Suzanne Geiss, and Julia Grun, Keith Haring, 2008, p. 164.)

     

    Haring found that the murals’ audience began to ascribed profoundness to the three-eyed figure due to the notion of the third eye in Eastern religions, wherein it represents the gateway to higher consciousness and enlightenment; others saw the extra eye as a commentary on the rise of surveillance technology at the time. The various interpretations amused Haring, and the symbol of the face soon became another icon of the artist, joining the ranks of his radiant baby and barking dog. As the image proliferated throughout Haring’s career, ending up on stickers, prints, paintings, and ephemera, other meanings have been retroactively ascribed to this face within the larger context of Haring’s work in art and activism, namely attributing this “monster,” as it is often called, with the themes of greed and capitalism that Haring explored elsewhere in his work. On his Gran Pavese flag, however, this three-eyed face exists singularly and decontextualized, a standalone symbol to represent the artist, and above all, one that is open to interpretation by the public – something the artist welcomed and embraced throughout his career. 

     

    Nepal, Kathmandu Valley, Head of Bhairava, 16th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Zimmerman Family Collection, Gift of the Zimmerman Family, 2012, 2012.444.2

     

    • Condition Report

    • Literature

      Gran Pavese Foundation, Gran Pavese: The Flag Project, 50 Flags/50 Artists, 1988, pp. 72-73

    • Artist Biography

      Keith Haring

      American • 1958 - 1990

      Haring's art and life typified youthful exuberance and fearlessness. While seemingly playful and transparent, Haring dealt with weighty subjects such as death, sex and war, enabling subtle and multiple interpretations. 

      Throughout his tragically brief career, Haring refined a visual language of symbols, which he called icons, the origins of which began with his trademark linear style scrawled in white chalk on the black unused advertising spaces in subway stations. Haring developed and disseminated these icons far and wide, in his vibrant and dynamic style, from public murals and paintings to t-shirts and Swatch watches. His art bridged high and low, erasing the distinctions between rarefied art, political activism and popular culture. 

      View More Works

Property from the Private Collection of Ralph van Hessen, The Hague, Netherlands

18

Untitled, from Gran Pavese – The Flag Project

1988
Monumental screenprint in colors, on polyester flag.
75 1/2 x 113 in. (191.8 x 287 cm)
Signed, dated and numbered 2/10 in black ink on the accompanying Certificate of Authenticity issued by the publisher (there were also 4 in Roman numerals), published by Gran Pavese Foundation, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for $69,850

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 12 February 2025