Jean-Michel Basquiat

Annina Nosei Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 7 November 1990, Lot 379
Private Collection, Greenville
Sale: Christie's, New York, Contemporay Art, 21 November 1996, Lot 299
Galerie Alain le Gaillard, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Le Musée Monde, 2011-2012, p. 81, illustrated in colour

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 1996, Vol. II, p. 80, no. 5, illustrated in colour
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, Vol. II, p. 146, no. 1, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good and original condition. There are handling marks towards all four edges many of which appear to be inherent to the artist's method. There is a horizontal drip mark across the bottom half of the canvas, visible in the catalogue illustration. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Untitled conveys Jean-Michel Basquiat’s possession of an encyclopaedic intellect and prodigious ability to communicate a highly evocative yet masterfully succinct visual code. Fascinated by his own cultural heritage, his father of Haitian descent, this painting speaks to the legacy of white colonisation and black servitude. Bearing the emblematical three-pointed crown bracketed by, in large capital letters, ‘LOANS’ and ‘HAITI’, this work delivers a rumination on the struggles endured along the quest for autonomy. Hovering below Basquiat’s signature monogram, a rapidly scribbled and distinctly mask-like black face is accompanied by a highly loaded and diagrammatical list in Basquiat’s distinctive handwriting. This hierarchy of names in blue oilstick alludes to the history of power and Empire following Christopher Columbus’ colonisation of Haiti as part of the New World in the late sixteenth century. Here, Basquiat’s allusion to the Spanish Conquistador Hérnan Cortés and Napoleon Bonaparte charts the dominion of European power through to the Haitian Revolution towards the very end of the eighteenth century. Lasting from 1791-1803 and spurred by the political unrest of the French Revolution, this historically significant revolt pinpoints the most successful single rebellion in the history of slavery. Under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, an educated and successful man who had won his freedom some years before, the revolution achieved Haitian independence from the French, setting the precedent in the fight for black equality globally. Sometimes referred to as the ‘black Napoleon’, L’Ouverture‘s leadership and military intelligence successfully defended against the French, British and Spanish militias. Tragically, L’Ouverture died in prison in 1802 shortly before the French fully capitulated. Considered among the many martyred black heroes of modern culture, a full portrait of L’Ouverture features in Basquiat’s monumental 1983 work L’Overture verus Savonarolla.

In the present work Basqiuat makes a wider allusion to the abuses of power and ill-treatment of minorities. Here, the reference to ‘Alfred Dreyfus’ has particular resonance. At the end of the nineteenth century, the false imprisonment of a young Jewish army Captain on the grounds of communicating military intelligence to the Germans caused a scandal that revealed a growing degree of anti-Semitism in Christian Europe; a controversy moreover, that had direct implications for the birth of Zionism. With the present work, Basquiat minimally writes a history of oppression within the sparse rudimentary confines of his white canvas.

Painted during the definitive year for Basquiat's oeuvre and emblazoned with his most iconic motif; the crown, the present work delivers a multifaceted allusion to autobiography, black identity, power and money via a masterful symbolic economy. Indeed, these bare bones of word and image confidently assert Basquiat's mastery of a culturally loaded visual lexicon, which by 1982 had attained full potency.

The works produced in late 1982 demonstrate an increasingly sophisticated project heralded by the celebrated corpus of works stretched over jutting corner supports and exposed stretcher bars to which the present work belongs. Insouciant and purposefully rudimentary, these structures physically dismantle and imbue the grand tradition of painting on canvas with the tribal and primitive. At once, Basquiat draws a bridge between an acknowledgement of Modernism, particularly Picasso’s engagement with Iberian and African art, and his own cultural origins and identity as a black subject. Indeed, Basquiat's output is fundamentally rooted within a multilingual pluralism informed by his tripartite ethnicity. Simultaneously possessing a Haitian, Hispanic and African-American heritage, Basquiat harnessed a unique ability to channel a multitude of languages, both spoken and visual, to forge a vanguard dialogue of identity politics at the forefront of the postmodern and postcolonial contemporary moment: a characteristic particularly prevalent in the present painting.

Ephemerally constructed, loose yet assertively drawn, the child-like freedom with which Basquiat synchronised a multitude of divergent visual citations here belies the ambition and seriousness of his central artistic project. As outlined by Dick Hebridge: "… in the reduction of line into its strongest, most primary inscriptions, in that peeling of the skin back to the bone, Basquiat did us all a service by uncovering (and recapitulating) the history of his own construction as a black American male" (Dick Hebidge, 'Welcome to the Terrordome: Jean Michel Basquiat and the "Dark" Side of Hybridity', Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1993, p. 65). By employing a disarming child-like quality, Basquiat critiques, recapitulates and forges an emergent and totally independent voice for marginalised subjectivity within the meta-narrative of high art.