Jean-Michel Basquiat

Vrej Baghoomian, Inc., New York
Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
Galerie Bishofberger, Zurich
Private Collection, Switzerland
Sotheby's, New York, November 18, 1999, Lot 110
Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above)
Lio Malca, New York
Max Lang Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2006

New York, Vrej Baghoomian, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October - November 1989, cat. no. 5, illustrated in color
Cologne, Galerie Jablonka, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October 2003 -January 2004

Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1992, p. 37, illustrated
Richard Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 1996, 1st ed., vol. II, fig. 3, p. 16, illustrated in color (detail) and p. 46 (text)
Richard Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 1996, 2nd ed., vol. II, fig. 3, p. 16, illustrated in color (detail), p. 46 (text) and no. 9, p. 54, illustrated in color
Richard Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 2000, 3rd ed., vol. II, fig. 3, p. 26, illustrated in color (detail) and no. 9, p. 80, illustrated in color

This painting is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art department at 212-606-7254 for the condition report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is framed in a blonde wood strip frame with a small float.
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.
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Poet and art critic René Ricard famously introduced the art world to Jean-Michel Basquiat in his Artforum article "Radiant Child." It was December of 1981, a groundbreaking year for Basquiat, and Ricard mused, "I'm always amazed at how people come up with things. Like Jean-Michel... What he incorporates into his pictures, whether found or made, is specific and selective. He has a perfect idea of what he's getting across, using everything that collates to his vision." (René Ricard, "Radiant Child," Artforum, New York, vol. XX, no. 4, December 1981, p. 37).  Untitled, 1981 is a perfect illustration of Ricard's observation and a phenomenal example of Basquiat's singular visual lexicon at this pivotal moment. Animated and vibrant, the painting seems to pulsate with a large city's noise and bustle. As in the streets of Manhattan, the viewer is confronted by multiple actions - a wailing ambulance, flying planes, a hard-hitting hammer - all by way of Basquiat's simplified symbols. Other more enigmatic notations such as the letter "A" were as revelatory to the artist's personal visual vocabulary. As such, Untitled is an exciting example of Basquiat's early work and more specifically, of the work that first earned the young artist critical acclaim.

Just prior to the Artforum feature, Basquiat had renounced his well-known SAMO graffiti tag and undertaken the daunting task of breaking into the New York art world. In seeking to establish his artistic practice, Basquiat steeped himself in art history, studying the works and techniques of masters he admired, including, but not limited to, Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning and Cy Twombly. In 1981, their discernable influence on Basquiat's work spurred Ricard to declare, "If Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet had a baby and gave it up for adoption, it would be Jean-Michel. The elegance of Twombly is there, but from the same source (graffiti), and so is the brut of the young Dubuffet." (Ibid., p. 43).

Meanwhile Basquiat was emerging into a milieu of cutting-edge and emerging art along with other artists highlighted in "Radiant Child", such as Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente and John Ahearn. Like Basquiat, these artists had gained their voice and established a presence by the end of 1981 via both self-organized exhibitions and gallery shows - the "Lower Manhattan Drawing Show" at the Mudd Club and "Public Address" at the Annina Nosei Gallery were just two examples of the shows credited with bringing Basquiat's artistic vision to public attention. Nosei quickly became Basquiat's primary dealer, and opened the artist's first one-man show the following year, 1982, to tremendous praise. Gallerist Tony Shafrazi explained the unparalleled potential Basquiat exuded at the time by writing, "As he began to paint, and with his first exhibition at Annina Nosei, Jean-Michel Basquiat was already a young king. He knew he was the best and demanded serious attention and respect... He was consumed with deep love for the most beautiful and moving aspects of black culture and history, calling upon the great heroes, writing and rewriting the names of boxers, athletes, artists and the whole history of jazz musicians..." (Tony Shafrazi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd ed., Paris, 2000, p. 50).

In this vein, Untitled, is a clever celebration of African American baseball great Hank Aaron. Though Basquiat explicitly referenced the sports hero in paintings such as Untitled (Aaron), also of 1981, the present work honors Aaron by way of the prolific A's marching throughout the composition. Thus evocative not only of the emergency vehicle's siren, but also of the athlete's venerable achievements, the A's suggest the up-and-away movement of a homerun hit as much as the flyby of a plane. Basquiat's inclusion of a bright yellow-brown hammer further signifies Aaron's nickname. Basquiat was aware that Aaron was known as "Hammerin' Hank," a nod to the player's proclivity for hammering-out homeruns.

In Untitled, this commemoration of African American history and cultural importance is layered within the context of an autobiographical story. At the age of seven, Basquiat was playing ball in a Brooklyn street (where planes en route to LaGuardia and Kennedy airports passed overhead) when he was hit by a car. A formative moment in Basquiat's life, the artist's memory of the incident is conjured here by the bright red of both the car's medical cross and selected repeating A's. Severely injured, Basquiat was rushed to the hospital where he underwent surgery and entered a long period of recuperation. Eventually making a full recovery, this incident nevertheless had a deep impact on the artist's early psyche and is a recurring motif in his fecund artistic lexicon. Additionally, it was at this time that his mother gave the young boy a copy of Gray's Anatomy, thus contributing the images of internal organs and physiognomy that would proliferate in Basquiat's paintings and drawings.

Though Basquiat's life was cut tragically short in 1988, Peter Brant rightly illuminates the extent of Basquiat's genius by writing, "Jean-Michel Basquiat, where did he come from? Why can you feel by viewing his paintings that he always knew he would be remembered as an important figure in art history and why did he die so young? We can't have those answers, we just know that his work will be with us forever. And, as a king rules by divine right so did Jean-Michel Basquiat draw and paint." (Peter M. Brant, "In God We Trust" in Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1999, p. 29).