Keith Haring - Evening & Day Editions London Thursday, September 21, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Three friends, Keith Haring, Chris Murray and Anthony Shriver, turned a friendship formed at the Govinda Gallery, which was just steps from Georgetown University, into a lasting legacy. When Anthony Shriver, the nephew of President Kennedy, founded the Best Buddies organisation he turned to his friends from the gallery where he hosted organisational meetings and planned fundraisers. Best Buddies enlisted university students to help create opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. Haring acquiesced to his friends’ request that he design a logo for the organisation. The artist also agreed to make a print of the image in order to help with raising additional funds. Keith Haring died before he was able to sign the edition. Best Buddies was the artist’s last print and it helped to raise over $500,000, leaving a lasting gift for the organisation and the many lives touched by it.

    • Literature

      Klaus Littmann pp. 184-85

    • 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

157

Best Buddies

1990
Screenprint in colours, on Coventry Rag paper, with full margins.
I. 55.9 x 70.1 cm (22 x 27 5/8 in.)
S. 66.2 x 81.4 cm (26 1/8 x 32 in.)

Titled and numbered 'AP 27/30' in pencil on the front (an artist's proof, the edition was 200), signed and dated '4/25/90' by Julia Gruen (Executor for the Keith Haring Estate) in pencil on the Estate stamp on the reverse, also signed by the printer, and Anthony Shriver, founder of the Best Buddies organisation, unframed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for £35,560

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Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 21 - 22 September 2023