Plus 1982 BASQUIAT (page in construction)
The lots below do not currently have a position in a thematic page.
1982 YELLOW TAR AND FEATHERS
2013 SOLD FOR $ 26M BY SOTHEBY'S
After his artistic experience in Modena in the spring of 1981, Basquiat returned under New York influence. His temporary installation in Annina Nosei's basement begins in September.
The activism against the humiliating living conditions of African Americans is gradually becoming his major theme. Pollo Frito, inspired by slavery in the Southern States, is included in the exhibition at the Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982. It was sold for $ 25.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018.
Basquiat leaves immediately afterward for Los Angeles. He has lots of ideas, works fast, and is decidedly inspired by California. This opportunity allows him to experiment with the more complex techniques of mixed media.
The exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles with the support of Nosei in April-May 1982 already includes his first masterpieces of this new phase, including two works forming pendants on the theme of tar and feathers.
The two works have no title defined by the artist and are identified by their dominant color : Yellow Tar and Feathers, and Black Tar and Feathers. With a narrative intention that follows the Pollo Frito, the artist separates each work into two registers. He no longer uses canvas but wood on which he can at will paste photocopies of drawings and stick ugly masses of feathers in the paint.
The yellow version, 245 x 230 cm, was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013, lot 10. As in the Pollo Frito, it incorporates a lot of subtleties, some of which are only identifiable by insiders.
At the left of the upper register, a misshapen bag bears the inscription TAR just beside a lynching, the other type of abject abuse traditionally inflicted on Negroes. A little further on, one of the three characters has the head of Harry Geldzahler, the white guru of this modern New York art that Basquiat has just fled.
The activism against the humiliating living conditions of African Americans is gradually becoming his major theme. Pollo Frito, inspired by slavery in the Southern States, is included in the exhibition at the Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982. It was sold for $ 25.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018.
Basquiat leaves immediately afterward for Los Angeles. He has lots of ideas, works fast, and is decidedly inspired by California. This opportunity allows him to experiment with the more complex techniques of mixed media.
The exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles with the support of Nosei in April-May 1982 already includes his first masterpieces of this new phase, including two works forming pendants on the theme of tar and feathers.
The two works have no title defined by the artist and are identified by their dominant color : Yellow Tar and Feathers, and Black Tar and Feathers. With a narrative intention that follows the Pollo Frito, the artist separates each work into two registers. He no longer uses canvas but wood on which he can at will paste photocopies of drawings and stick ugly masses of feathers in the paint.
The yellow version, 245 x 230 cm, was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013, lot 10. As in the Pollo Frito, it incorporates a lot of subtleties, some of which are only identifiable by insiders.
At the left of the upper register, a misshapen bag bears the inscription TAR just beside a lynching, the other type of abject abuse traditionally inflicted on Negroes. A little further on, one of the three characters has the head of Harry Geldzahler, the white guru of this modern New York art that Basquiat has just fled.
1982 POLLO FRITO
2018 SOLD FOR $ 25.7M BY SOTHEBY'S
On November 14, 2018, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 25.7M a diptych of total size 153 x 306 cm painted in 1982 by Basquiat and exhibited at Annina Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982.
This painting in acrylic, oil stick, enamel and incisions is dominated by incendiary colors : yellow, orange, red, beside the head of an angry cook. The many tags are in the style of texts adored by the street kids, incomprehensible by the bourgeois (and not decoded in the catalog of the sale).
The words Pollo Frito written like on a sign are not tags but the offer by the cook. The inscriptions all around are menacing : danger, peligroso, broke glass. The lower left corner is darker, symbolizing a stove on which Asbestos is written three times. The three-pointed crown is a signature of the artist.
The cook of chickens is furious against these young taggers who do not attack only the bourgeois but his Pollo Frito was formerly the typical food of the slaves of the south. The dangers of asbestos are a modern threat that the bourgeois still pretend to ignore at that time.
This diptych thus appears as an immediate precursor of the five-panel 125 x 471 cm political fresco titled Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, painted in the following year, sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
This painting in acrylic, oil stick, enamel and incisions is dominated by incendiary colors : yellow, orange, red, beside the head of an angry cook. The many tags are in the style of texts adored by the street kids, incomprehensible by the bourgeois (and not decoded in the catalog of the sale).
The words Pollo Frito written like on a sign are not tags but the offer by the cook. The inscriptions all around are menacing : danger, peligroso, broke glass. The lower left corner is darker, symbolizing a stove on which Asbestos is written three times. The three-pointed crown is a signature of the artist.
The cook of chickens is furious against these young taggers who do not attack only the bourgeois but his Pollo Frito was formerly the typical food of the slaves of the south. The dangers of asbestos are a modern threat that the bourgeois still pretend to ignore at that time.
This diptych thus appears as an immediate precursor of the five-panel 125 x 471 cm political fresco titled Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, painted in the following year, sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
1982 Red Skull
2017 SOLD FOR £ 16.5M INCLUDING PREMIUM
On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M including premium an Untitled 183 x 173 cm painted by Basquiat in January 1982. A Red Skull 152 x 152 cm of the same year is for sale by Christie's in London on October 6, lot 8. Beyond the fact that both are centered on a single skull, these artworks have significant differences.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
1982 Red Warrior
2021 SOLD FOR HK$ 163M BY SOTHEBY'S
The red figure of a warrior marks as early as 1982 the desire of the young Jean-Michel to add in his art some slavery symbols of another world and time.
Its featured character is not an African tribal chief, nor a boxing champion, nor a NYC cop. He is a threatening and towering Roman gladiator brandishing his huge sword. The muscular body is again transparent to internal organs but for marking the difference it is not black but crimson red. He does not have a crown but an antique helmet.
This Untitled acrylic and oilstick on linen 196 x 198 cm is estimated HK $ 150M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 9, 2021, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Its featured character is not an African tribal chief, nor a boxing champion, nor a NYC cop. He is a threatening and towering Roman gladiator brandishing his huge sword. The muscular body is again transparent to internal organs but for marking the difference it is not black but crimson red. He does not have a crown but an antique helmet.
This Untitled acrylic and oilstick on linen 196 x 198 cm is estimated HK $ 150M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 9, 2021, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1982 THE WITHERED CHAMPION
2017 SOLD FOR £ 12M INCLUDING PREMIUM
In 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat glorified the African American sports champion with both arms raised in victory in life-size paintings. The artwork 183 x 122 cm for sale by Sotheby's in London on March 8, lot 13 estimated £ 14M, brings another reading.
The champion has become shabby. His arms with disjointed elbows are branches of a dead tree and his crown of thorns is soft like a Dali watch. The big crown rewarding the winner is intact in the bottom right but we cannot know who will catch it.
The young artist mastered the mix of techniques : acrylic, spray and oilstick. However he takes care to execute the focusing point of the picture, the face of the character, by an ersatz of art : a simple xerox on which only one eye is left as another obvious sign of the degeneration of his hero.
Basquiat is a keen activist about the superiority of the black race but this nightmare is not a depressive accident in his work, otherwise he would have modified or destroyed it. It seems that the artist has always understood that his fight has no chance of success. This painting is a self-mocking masterpiece far more expressive than his drift in the following years toward the howling of a desperate political message.
The champion has become shabby. His arms with disjointed elbows are branches of a dead tree and his crown of thorns is soft like a Dali watch. The big crown rewarding the winner is intact in the bottom right but we cannot know who will catch it.
The young artist mastered the mix of techniques : acrylic, spray and oilstick. However he takes care to execute the focusing point of the picture, the face of the character, by an ersatz of art : a simple xerox on which only one eye is left as another obvious sign of the degeneration of his hero.
Basquiat is a keen activist about the superiority of the black race but this nightmare is not a depressive accident in his work, otherwise he would have modified or destroyed it. It seems that the artist has always understood that his fight has no chance of success. This painting is a self-mocking masterpiece far more expressive than his drift in the following years toward the howling of a desperate political message.
1982 THE THREAT OF THE BLUE MAN
2020 SOLD FOR $ 15.2M INCLUDING PREMIUM
In 1981 Jean-Michel Basquiat benefits from new working conditions which immediately leads him to fame. He has fun, and amuses us, with themes inspired by the street.
Jean-Michel is a great artist because he perfectly masters composition and color and because his knowledge of art history guides him in a fruitful direction : the important thing in a human figuration is the head, which reveals the psyche and brings the threats.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M including premium by Christie's on May 18, 2017. Painted in March, a panoramic composition 239 x 500 cm centered on the head of a black devil was sold for $ 57M including premium by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
He is a tireless creator. Besides his paintings on canvas, he does a lot of paintings on paper, which are not strictly speaking sketches but rather a means of testing various effects. This corpus includes a series of 15 heads of mad men.
One of the largest, 109 x 78 cm oilstick on paper painted in five colors in 1982, was sold for $ 12M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2013 over a lower estimate of $ 7M and for £ 6.2M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016. Note that Basquiat's madman is a white man.
The 76 x 56 cm head for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29 is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the example above, 1982. Here the artist takes no racial position : the skin is bright blue. He used on paper the range of techniques of his paintings on canvas, oilstick, ink and acrylic. This piece halfway between the drawing and the completed work is estimated $ 9M, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Jean-Michel is a great artist because he perfectly masters composition and color and because his knowledge of art history guides him in a fruitful direction : the important thing in a human figuration is the head, which reveals the psyche and brings the threats.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M including premium by Christie's on May 18, 2017. Painted in March, a panoramic composition 239 x 500 cm centered on the head of a black devil was sold for $ 57M including premium by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
He is a tireless creator. Besides his paintings on canvas, he does a lot of paintings on paper, which are not strictly speaking sketches but rather a means of testing various effects. This corpus includes a series of 15 heads of mad men.
One of the largest, 109 x 78 cm oilstick on paper painted in five colors in 1982, was sold for $ 12M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2013 over a lower estimate of $ 7M and for £ 6.2M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016. Note that Basquiat's madman is a white man.
The 76 x 56 cm head for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29 is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the example above, 1982. Here the artist takes no racial position : the skin is bright blue. He used on paper the range of techniques of his paintings on canvas, oilstick, ink and acrylic. This piece halfway between the drawing and the completed work is estimated $ 9M, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1982 Heads of Mad Men
1
2015 SOLD for $ 13.6M by Christie's
narrated and linked below
2
2013 SOLD FOR $ 12M INCLUDING PREMIUM BY CHRISTIE'S
2016 SOLD FOR £ 6.2M INCLUDING PREMIUM
PRE 2016 SALE DISCUSSION
Jean-Michel Basquiat is a virtuoso of oilstick. This technique is mixing the quality of oil painting with the spontaneous line of a pencil if you are happy with only pure colors. He used it in the compositions on large size canvas that launched his fame from 1981. The drawing on paper, often laid down on canvas, allows rapid sketches with which the artist tests his expressive effects.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait. On 1982 alone, fifteen drawings of crazy heads are known.
One of them, 109 x 78 cm, was entirely made in oilstick with five sticks: black, white, red, blue and orange. The mad man is superb with terrible eyes, aggressive fangs and a short but shaggy hair. The blue face and the bright red thick beard reinforce the disturbing and indomitable features of the character.
This drawing was sold for $ 12M including premium on November 12, 2013 by Christie's. On that year, the rating of Basquiat was bursting, pushed by some observers of the art market who identified him as the new Van Gogh. The same piece is now estimated £ 4.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 10, lot 15.
Other drawings of same size also recorded high prices at auction, although they are less colored. A head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M including premium by Christie's on 11 May 2015, lot 27A. A head made in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
Jean-Michel Basquiat is a virtuoso of oilstick. This technique is mixing the quality of oil painting with the spontaneous line of a pencil if you are happy with only pure colors. He used it in the compositions on large size canvas that launched his fame from 1981. The drawing on paper, often laid down on canvas, allows rapid sketches with which the artist tests his expressive effects.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait. On 1982 alone, fifteen drawings of crazy heads are known.
One of them, 109 x 78 cm, was entirely made in oilstick with five sticks: black, white, red, blue and orange. The mad man is superb with terrible eyes, aggressive fangs and a short but shaggy hair. The blue face and the bright red thick beard reinforce the disturbing and indomitable features of the character.
This drawing was sold for $ 12M including premium on November 12, 2013 by Christie's. On that year, the rating of Basquiat was bursting, pushed by some observers of the art market who identified him as the new Van Gogh. The same piece is now estimated £ 4.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 10, lot 15.
Other drawings of same size also recorded high prices at auction, although they are less colored. A head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M including premium by Christie's on 11 May 2015, lot 27A. A head made in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
1982 Portrait of A One
2020 SOLD FOR $ 11.5M INCLUDING PREMIUM
After his first year of fame, Jean-Michel Basquiat remains keen to his comrades of the street art. On December 7 in New York, Phillips sells Portrait of A ONE A.K.A. Kings, acrylic, oilstick and marker on canvas 183 x 184 cm painted in September 1982, lot 16 estimated $ 10M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In New York street vernacular, the King is a tagger who has established his skills in his neighborhood. A King thus acquires from his fellows the right to sign his works with a crown. SAMO was a King. The talent of A ONE, four years younger, is equally promising. This Manhattan kid had no training other than his experience in the streets and his painting style is genuine and complex, with much filled surfaces.
For conceiving this portrait, Basquiat retrieves his style from the previous year. In front of a background of graffiti marked KINGS, the African-American boy has the attitude of the warriors and champions caricatured by Jean-Michel. The head is a red mask surmounted by a thick three-pointed crown. I don't know if A ONE recognized himself in this picture but they certainly had a lot of fun. Basquiat did not forget to incorporate his own signature crown, which is simpler.
Basquiat's innovation is limitless. The painting is not mounted in a frame but on a stretcher of four beams, the ends of which overhang behind the four corners of the canvas. He liked to build these supports with pieces of salvaged wood from who knows where.
In New York street vernacular, the King is a tagger who has established his skills in his neighborhood. A King thus acquires from his fellows the right to sign his works with a crown. SAMO was a King. The talent of A ONE, four years younger, is equally promising. This Manhattan kid had no training other than his experience in the streets and his painting style is genuine and complex, with much filled surfaces.
For conceiving this portrait, Basquiat retrieves his style from the previous year. In front of a background of graffiti marked KINGS, the African-American boy has the attitude of the warriors and champions caricatured by Jean-Michel. The head is a red mask surmounted by a thick three-pointed crown. I don't know if A ONE recognized himself in this picture but they certainly had a lot of fun. Basquiat did not forget to incorporate his own signature crown, which is simpler.
Basquiat's innovation is limitless. The painting is not mounted in a frame but on a stretcher of four beams, the ends of which overhang behind the four corners of the canvas. He liked to build these supports with pieces of salvaged wood from who knows where.
1982-1983 EAR, CHEST AND MUSIC
2013 SOLD 6.8 M£ INCLUDING PREMIUM
On 1 July 2008, Sotheby's sold £ 5.1 million including premium a painting by Basquiat. Here are some extracts from my discussion of that time:
'This is not a requiem, but almost. This painting was acquired by the group U2 in 1989, the year that followed the death of Basquiat, to decorate their recording studio in Dublin. The current seller is U2, offering it at auction atSotheby's in London on July 1 (Lot 48).
'It dates from 1982, and Sotheby's, in its press release, remind three results obtained by them on works by Basquiat painted during that year or the previous year: $ 14.6M on May 15, 2007, lot 15, recorded as 1981 from a later sale, $ 11.8M on November 14, 2007 (Electric chair, dated 1982, acquired 1981), lot 16, $ 9.6M on May 14, 2008 (Prophet I, 1082), lot 56.
'The date is good, as also the dimensions. Its size, 183 x 183 cm, is roughly the same as the one mentioned above as sold in May 2007 (200 x 183 cm). The latter, with an almost full character lifting his arms, is more expressive than the newcomer, which is limited to a head and letters. Also, the link with music is not negligible.'
This acrylic, oil stick and collage on canvas comes back on February 12 in the same auction room, now dated 1982-1983 and estimated £ 7M. It deserves to get a closer look than what I did in 2008.
The head is a hybrid between realistic and skinned, responding to a well-known metaphysical obsession by Basquiat on human nature. The word PECHO is placed on the chest like a label. The word OREJA is beside an almost torn off ear.
Basquiat, despite his young age, was a great connoisseur of art history. The ear and chest can only be the two mutilated organs of Van Gogh.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's in 2013.
POST SALE COMMENT
Despite the recent trend of the art market for pushing Basquiat, this interesting artwork has not provided the expected gain. It still sold: £ 6.8 million including premium.
'This is not a requiem, but almost. This painting was acquired by the group U2 in 1989, the year that followed the death of Basquiat, to decorate their recording studio in Dublin. The current seller is U2, offering it at auction atSotheby's in London on July 1 (Lot 48).
'It dates from 1982, and Sotheby's, in its press release, remind three results obtained by them on works by Basquiat painted during that year or the previous year: $ 14.6M on May 15, 2007, lot 15, recorded as 1981 from a later sale, $ 11.8M on November 14, 2007 (Electric chair, dated 1982, acquired 1981), lot 16, $ 9.6M on May 14, 2008 (Prophet I, 1082), lot 56.
'The date is good, as also the dimensions. Its size, 183 x 183 cm, is roughly the same as the one mentioned above as sold in May 2007 (200 x 183 cm). The latter, with an almost full character lifting his arms, is more expressive than the newcomer, which is limited to a head and letters. Also, the link with music is not negligible.'
This acrylic, oil stick and collage on canvas comes back on February 12 in the same auction room, now dated 1982-1983 and estimated £ 7M. It deserves to get a closer look than what I did in 2008.
The head is a hybrid between realistic and skinned, responding to a well-known metaphysical obsession by Basquiat on human nature. The word PECHO is placed on the chest like a label. The word OREJA is beside an almost torn off ear.
Basquiat, despite his young age, was a great connoisseur of art history. The ear and chest can only be the two mutilated organs of Van Gogh.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's in 2013.
POST SALE COMMENT
Despite the recent trend of the art market for pushing Basquiat, this interesting artwork has not provided the expected gain. It still sold: £ 6.8 million including premium.
