Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on September 22, 1960. A New York native of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, he began making drawings inspired by television cartoons at an early age, though he never received formal art training. He is most often associated with the Graffiti movement in the 1970's, embellishing city walls with graffiti, poetry and street tags. These works eventually led him to exhibit with Annina Nosei Gallery and at such venerated venues as the Documenta 7 and the 1983 Whitney Biennial.
His work from the beginning consisted of conceptual, enigmatic combinations of words and symbols, executed with curt child-like simplicity. One critic has called Basquiat's style "the child's urgent drawing made before the conventions are learned...[He existed] being "out there" in the wild, living on the streets, on nerve." His style propelled him to the forefront of the Neo-Expressionist movement, which was characterized by intense subjectivity of feeling and aggressively raw handling of materials.
Basquiat's productive career spanned barely a decade and culminated with his untimely death at the age of 27, yet he is considered one of the most interesting artists of his generation and one of only a small number of Hispanic-African-American artists to have achieved international recognition.

Jean-Michel Basquiat Images:
Icarus Esso