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Keith Haring
American Pop Artist
(1958 - 1990)

Keith Haring was prompted to draw from an early age mainly through cartoons on television. He studied at the Ivy School of Art in Pittsburgh where he began to silk-screen T-shirts. In 1978 he moved to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts. The burgeoning East Village club scene was to become his main inspiration.

In 1980 Haring took up Graffiti Art, at first decorating advertisements in the New York Subway with his marker pen and soon producing a series of narratives done in white chalk on the black billboard paper of unused advertising spaces. His choice of imagery was highly distinctive, for example incorporating modes of communication like televisions and telephones, references to nuclear energy, and featuring flying saucers at every opportunity. By mixing comic figures with political messages, Haring provoked considerable debate both on street level and within the art establishment. Like Warhol, he embraced popular culture and was intent on breaking down the barrier between high art and low art. Haring worked in a number of different media including sculpture, posters and body painting, but they always featured his distinctive Day-Glo colours.

24" x 16.75"

Offset Lithograph

Original poster for an exhibition held at both Castelli and Shafrazi in 1983, just moments before Keith Haring became a huge international star.

This is one of Keith Haring's earliest known posters.

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