Plus 1982 BASQUIAT
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Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
The Italian Version of Popeye
2024 SOLD for $ 32M by Christie's
The already unleashed creativity of Jean-Michel Basquiat got a further boost during his second visit in Italy. He was not yet 22 years old.
A fair example executed in November or December 1982 is titled by the artist The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet.
The represented character is dismantled in three parts : the black figure is beheaded. A silhouetted cut arm over the torso is a copy from a figure in Jean-Michel's beloved Gray's Anatomy book. The unfriendly black bust in the foreground has an unprecedented third row of teeth and wears a Christian cross. With its wide open eyes, he etymologically cannot be a Popeye.
The burst of tag-like words mingles English and Italian, boxing and pork diet, with allusions to consumerism. VERSUS PORK appearing like a fake title on the upper left corner reminds the more intellectual Versus Medici title of the same period, one of his masterpieces that sold for $ 51M at Sotheby's in 2021. The American brawler Popeye is introduced in the surrealist title as a possible would-be white hero but not referred directly in that opus.
This artwork is an early example mounted on a stretcher whose overcoming ends are visible in front view.
Its first owner had been the Gagosian Gallery in New York, from which it was acquired in the next year by Sidney Janis Gallery and soon afterwards by Annina Nosei. This acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas 152 x 152 cm was sold for $ 32M by Christie's on May 14, 2024, lot 36A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
A fair example executed in November or December 1982 is titled by the artist The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet.
The represented character is dismantled in three parts : the black figure is beheaded. A silhouetted cut arm over the torso is a copy from a figure in Jean-Michel's beloved Gray's Anatomy book. The unfriendly black bust in the foreground has an unprecedented third row of teeth and wears a Christian cross. With its wide open eyes, he etymologically cannot be a Popeye.
The burst of tag-like words mingles English and Italian, boxing and pork diet, with allusions to consumerism. VERSUS PORK appearing like a fake title on the upper left corner reminds the more intellectual Versus Medici title of the same period, one of his masterpieces that sold for $ 51M at Sotheby's in 2021. The American brawler Popeye is introduced in the surrealist title as a possible would-be white hero but not referred directly in that opus.
This artwork is an early example mounted on a stretcher whose overcoming ends are visible in front view.
Its first owner had been the Gagosian Gallery in New York, from which it was acquired in the next year by Sidney Janis Gallery and soon afterwards by Annina Nosei. This acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas 152 x 152 cm was sold for $ 32M by Christie's on May 14, 2024, lot 36A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
One Eyed Man or Xerox Face
2021 SOLD for HK$ 234M by Christie's
In 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat glorified the African American sports champion with both arms raised in victory in life-size paintings. Nevertheless an Untitled known as One Eyed Man or Xerox Face brings another reading.
Painted for Annina Nosei Gallery, the character is bright red, excepted the pale face photocopied from an autograph drawing. It includes cutter incisions in the thick pigment to reveal a dark background.
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 took 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. The xerox is then a novelty in his artistic process. It will nevertheless not be reused at such a prominent place.
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.
It was sold for £ 12M by Sotheby's on March 8, 2017, lot 13, and for HK $ 234M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 67.
Painted for Annina Nosei Gallery, the character is bright red, excepted the pale face photocopied from an autograph drawing. It includes cutter incisions in the thick pigment to reveal a dark background.
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 took 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. The xerox is then a novelty in his artistic process. It will nevertheless not be reused at such a prominent place.
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.
It was sold for £ 12M by Sotheby's on March 8, 2017, lot 13, and for HK $ 234M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 67.
Warrior
2013 SOLD for $ 29M by Christie's
As soon as he was invited to work in Annina Nosei's basement in 1981, Jean-Michel Basquiat gathered the elements of his personal mythology. An acrylic, oilstick and spray enamel on canvas 173 x 262 cm is typical. The character is an African warrior in the rough who wields a huge sword and a handful of radiant arrows or lightnings. This artwork was sold for $ 35M by Christie's in 2014.
On November 12, 2013, Christie's sold as lot 15 a simplified version of this image for $ 29M. Just as deliciously terrifying, this 183 x 122 cm acrylic and oilstick on wood painted in 1982 for Annina Nosei brings a better readability of the character, almost life-size in a surrounding of more vivid colors.
The main biomorphic features are retained, such as the skull-shaped head and the opening of the torso to internal organs. He is a tribal leader or an African American champion, with boxer shorts and gigantic feet that provide stability and triumph. The three-pointed crown is larger and in a shining golden yellow. The blood-red eyes are replaced with a gold plating.
Unlike the example of the previous year, the character no longer needs tags to convey his message. The weapons are replaced by a gigantic golden femur brandished like a scepter by this king of high fantasy. He is both winner and victim, ridiculous and autobiographical, in line with Basquiat's scathing humor of the time.
On November 12, 2013, Christie's sold as lot 15 a simplified version of this image for $ 29M. Just as deliciously terrifying, this 183 x 122 cm acrylic and oilstick on wood painted in 1982 for Annina Nosei brings a better readability of the character, almost life-size in a surrounding of more vivid colors.
The main biomorphic features are retained, such as the skull-shaped head and the opening of the torso to internal organs. He is a tribal leader or an African American champion, with boxer shorts and gigantic feet that provide stability and triumph. The three-pointed crown is larger and in a shining golden yellow. The blood-red eyes are replaced with a gold plating.
Unlike the example of the previous year, the character no longer needs tags to convey his message. The weapons are replaced by a gigantic golden femur brandished like a scepter by this king of high fantasy. He is both winner and victim, ridiculous and autobiographical, in line with Basquiat's scathing humor of the time.
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.
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.
Red Skull
2017 SOLD for £ 16.5M by Christie's
On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M an Untitled 183 x 173 cm painted by Basquiat in January 1982. A Red Skull 152 x 152 cm of the same year was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, 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 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 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.
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 was sold for HK $ 163M by Sotheby's 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 was sold for HK $ 163M by Sotheby's on October 9, 2021, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1982 Head
2024 SOLD for $ 23M by Christie's
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.
Jean-Michel 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.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Here are two examples on canvas. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M 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 by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
Basquiat 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 referred as heads of mad men.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait.
A larger than life Untitled in oilstick on paper 160 x 112 cm was executed in bold colors in 1982. It was sold for $ 23M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 8B. The short hair is covered by a laurel wreath. The face is made in a succession of yellow, red and black completed by a wide white that circles the haunting eyes, the extended grimace and the nose. An evidence of the urgency of the artist is the traces of his soles impressed on the paper.
Another one, 109 x 78 cm, was made 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 on November 12, 2013 by Christie's and for £ 6.2M by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016, lot 15.
Another drawing 109 x 77 cm is less colored. This head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 27A.
An Untitled oilstick and ink on paper 76 x 56 cm executed in 1982 referred as a skull-like self portrait was sold for £ 8M by Christie's on June 28, 2022, lot 37. The glowing colors include the turquoise skin and vivid red and yellow spots, contrasting over the deep black ink of the background. The hair is a narrow spiked crown.
A 76 x 56 cm head is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the examples 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 example painted in 1982 halfway between the drawing and the completed work was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The style continues in the next year. A head painted in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
A 76 x 56 cm head is not part of the mad men series but is also from 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 was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
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.
Jean-Michel 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.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Here are two examples on canvas. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M 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 by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
Basquiat 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 referred as heads of mad men.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait.
A larger than life Untitled in oilstick on paper 160 x 112 cm was executed in bold colors in 1982. It was sold for $ 23M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 8B. The short hair is covered by a laurel wreath. The face is made in a succession of yellow, red and black completed by a wide white that circles the haunting eyes, the extended grimace and the nose. An evidence of the urgency of the artist is the traces of his soles impressed on the paper.
Another one, 109 x 78 cm, was made 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 on November 12, 2013 by Christie's and for £ 6.2M by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016, lot 15.
Another drawing 109 x 77 cm is less colored. This head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 27A.
An Untitled oilstick and ink on paper 76 x 56 cm executed in 1982 referred as a skull-like self portrait was sold for £ 8M by Christie's on June 28, 2022, lot 37. The glowing colors include the turquoise skin and vivid red and yellow spots, contrasting over the deep black ink of the background. The hair is a narrow spiked crown.
A 76 x 56 cm head is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the examples 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 example painted in 1982 halfway between the drawing and the completed work was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The style continues in the next year. A head painted in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
A 76 x 56 cm head is not part of the mad men series but is also from 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 was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
FUN Gallery Show
1
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict
2024 SOLD for £ 16M by Sotheby's
In November and December 1982 the Fun Gallery in New York's Lower East Side dedicated a solo exhibition to Jean-Michel Basquiat. For the first time since he reached a local fame, he was liberated from the constraints of his commercial sponsors including Annina Nosei and Emilio Mazzoli.
He introduced himself for that exhibition with an unconventional artwork titled by him Portrait of the artist as a young derelict, meaning that he was convinced that he will remain a threatening outsider despite his artistic skills, comparing himself with the martyred Christ. The title refers to Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which dealt with the intellectual and mystic awakening of a young man.
Its mixed media is made of oil and oilstick painting scattered with metal artifacts on three hanging parqueted wood panels forming a folding triptych of 207 x 209 x 9.2 cm extended size with a taller central part, somehow referring to a Renaissance altarpiece.
The head in the signature self mocking style of the artist occupies the right panel. The other two parts are supporting various symbols including the three pointed crown beside the socially provocative word SALT reminiscent of slavery, a pair of bare feet severed above the ankle, the repeated word ANKLE, and a single MORTE with a crucifix behind a structure which may be a rocket or a slender building, possibly a City of the dead.
Jean-Michel was despite his young age a great connoisseur of both anatomy and art history. The ankle is a reference to Leonardo da Vinci's signature drawings of cut limbs for his anatomical training of displaying the human body. In the same solo exhibition, an acrylic, colored crayon, oilstick, pencil and paper on canvas mounted on wood was titled by the artist Leonardo da Vinci's greatest hits. Ankle is also a slang word for dismissed.
The whole makes a link with the street graffiti and anticipates by its hermetic narration and its use of recuperation hardware the style of Jean-Michel's masterpieces of the next year.
The self mocking triptych was sold for £ 16M by Sotheby's on June 25, 2024, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
He introduced himself for that exhibition with an unconventional artwork titled by him Portrait of the artist as a young derelict, meaning that he was convinced that he will remain a threatening outsider despite his artistic skills, comparing himself with the martyred Christ. The title refers to Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which dealt with the intellectual and mystic awakening of a young man.
Its mixed media is made of oil and oilstick painting scattered with metal artifacts on three hanging parqueted wood panels forming a folding triptych of 207 x 209 x 9.2 cm extended size with a taller central part, somehow referring to a Renaissance altarpiece.
The head in the signature self mocking style of the artist occupies the right panel. The other two parts are supporting various symbols including the three pointed crown beside the socially provocative word SALT reminiscent of slavery, a pair of bare feet severed above the ankle, the repeated word ANKLE, and a single MORTE with a crucifix behind a structure which may be a rocket or a slender building, possibly a City of the dead.
Jean-Michel was despite his young age a great connoisseur of both anatomy and art history. The ankle is a reference to Leonardo da Vinci's signature drawings of cut limbs for his anatomical training of displaying the human body. In the same solo exhibition, an acrylic, colored crayon, oilstick, pencil and paper on canvas mounted on wood was titled by the artist Leonardo da Vinci's greatest hits. Ankle is also a slang word for dismissed.
The whole makes a link with the street graffiti and anticipates by its hermetic narration and its use of recuperation hardware the style of Jean-Michel's masterpieces of the next year.
The self mocking triptych was sold for £ 16M by Sotheby's on June 25, 2024, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
2
Baby Boom
2025 SOLD for $ 23.4M by Christie's
In 1982 the frantic creativity of the 22 years old Basquiat is limitless in terms of themes and images but also of techniques and of mixed media.
Baby Boom, acrylic and oilstick with some paper collage 125 x 214 cm dated August 1982, is an early example of a canvas mounted on tied wood supports with the ends visible beyond the edges of the canvas. That stretcher made of four vertical and two horizontal chair rails and their string tying is possibly unique.
This stretcher was added for its exhibition in his solo show at the FUN Gallery in New York in November 1982. The gallerist later claimed that it had been the only formal show where the artist was totally free. From the same exhibition, a self mocking triptych titled Portrait of the artist as a young derelict was sold for £ 16M by Sotheby's on June 25, 2024, lot 18.
This fancy will be reused by the artist. Flexible, the painting on palisade sold for $ 45M by Phillips in 2018, is an evolution executed in 1984.
The triple portrait features a family with each standing character well centered on its panel, using the signature transparent anatomic style of the artist. The three are each wearing a reverential halo, which leads to consider that they are a tribute to Jean-Michel's father and mother with himself as a small prodigy boy whose emergency explains the title. Jean-Michel was indeed born several years after the post war baby boom.
The dad is expressing a greeting with his hand. His part of the image was used as the cover page of a solo exhibition catalogue at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010.
This multi panel artwork was sold for $ 23.4M by Christie's on May 14, 2025, lot 23B.
Baby Boom, acrylic and oilstick with some paper collage 125 x 214 cm dated August 1982, is an early example of a canvas mounted on tied wood supports with the ends visible beyond the edges of the canvas. That stretcher made of four vertical and two horizontal chair rails and their string tying is possibly unique.
This stretcher was added for its exhibition in his solo show at the FUN Gallery in New York in November 1982. The gallerist later claimed that it had been the only formal show where the artist was totally free. From the same exhibition, a self mocking triptych titled Portrait of the artist as a young derelict was sold for £ 16M by Sotheby's on June 25, 2024, lot 18.
This fancy will be reused by the artist. Flexible, the painting on palisade sold for $ 45M by Phillips in 2018, is an evolution executed in 1984.
The triple portrait features a family with each standing character well centered on its panel, using the signature transparent anatomic style of the artist. The three are each wearing a reverential halo, which leads to consider that they are a tribute to Jean-Michel's father and mother with himself as a small prodigy boy whose emergency explains the title. Jean-Michel was indeed born several years after the post war baby boom.
The dad is expressing a greeting with his hand. His part of the image was used as the cover page of a solo exhibition catalogue at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010.
This multi panel artwork was sold for $ 23.4M by Christie's on May 14, 2025, lot 23B.
