Jean-Michel Basquiat

Acquired by the present owner from the artist

Edinburgh, The Fruitmarket Gallery; London, Institute of Contemporary Arts; Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van-Beuningen, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Paintings 1981-1984, August 1984 - March 1985, p. 38, illustrated in color
Kyongju, Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art; Seoul, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat, September - November 1991, cat. no. 7, p. 49, illustrated in color

Kyoichi Tsuzuki, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kyoto, 1992
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1st ed., Vol. II, Paris, 1996, cat. no. 4, p. 78, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2nd ed., Vol. II, Paris, 1996, cat. no. 4, p. 98, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd ed., Vol. II, Paris, 2000, cat. no. 4, p. 152, illustrated in color

This painting is in excellent condition. Close inspection reveals minor wear to the lower left and right corner tips of the canvas. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is not framed.
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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Against a terrain of riveting indigo blue, Jean-Michel Basquiat brings alive a canvas rife with text, diagrams, and sketches in Masonic Lodge from 1983. With a rich layering of iconography against a spectacular density of paint, Basquiat enhanced the palpable texture that dominates this painting with an array of iconic motifs of anatomical parts and textual references. Basquiat intensified the work with a richly penetrating and hypnotic eye, punctuating the center of the canvas, and drawing the viewer inexorably into his world. Masonic Lodge serves as an illustrative example of Basquiat’s process with dense layers of composition representing relics of his thoughts and ideas as he brought the painting to life. Basquiat’s manner of painting and re-painting demonstrated that his works are equally reflective of his deliberate intentions as well as a product of their own organic process.

Signature to many of Basquiat’s works is his deeply rooted fascination with human anatomy, and this interest in an indexical understanding of the anatomical components of the human body is reduced to its essence in Masonic Lodge. In former works, Basquiat painted representational images of figures, heads, and faces. Masonic Lodge demonstrates a heightened and specific interest in in the skull as Basquiat breaks down its various aspects just as one may break down a machine to better understand its parts. Basquiat presented multiple diagrams of the components of the human skull shown from different angles as if he urgently wished to make sense of them in any way possible. The inclusion of the partially crossed out “Paranoid Schizophrenia” at the top of the composition may also be commentary on this exploration of the physical components of the skull as a means to consider the human psyche that lies within the physical building blocks that he has laid out.

The display of human anatomy in this work has a strongly imbued meaning drawn from Basquiat’s formative years. When he was merely a young boy of seven, he was struck by a car while playing ball in the street. The horrific accident led to a prolonged period of recuperation, and to occupy her recovering son’s time, Basquiat’s mother Matilde gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, which would become a seminal source of inspiration that deeply informed Basquiat’s artistic career. It was in these pages that the young boy became captivated by the elaborate drawings and diagrams of the human body’s internal architecture. In fact, the spectacular deconstructed anatomy in the present work is almost presented in the manner that it would have been displayed in a text book.  

Painted in the twenty-third year of his life, the present work came to fruition in a highly important year in Basquiat’s artistic career. 1983 is the year his paintings were received with great acclaim at Documenta VII in Kassel, Germany, as well as the year that he was invited to participate in the Whitney Biennial. Basquiat’s inclusion in the Biennial would prove to be influential to his career as it afforded him the opportunity to meet Mary Boone, who had been dubbed the “New Queen of the Art Scene” on a magazine cover the previous year. She would soon represent Basquiat alongside the Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger, giving the young artist access to an international and influential art market.

Masonic Lodge is charged with life, built up through a dense layering of Basquiat’s technical, emotional, and conceptual energies. Richard D. Marshall summarized Basquiat’s process well when he noted: “Basquiat drew and painted on canvas or paper with a confident and intelligent hand, working rapidly and spontaneously, and revisiting and changing instantaneously and visibly. His works are raw and aggressive, displaying an intuitive and spontaneous expression of form, color, and gesture combined with a subjective content of meaning and importance.” (Richard D. Marshall in Exh. Cat., Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 82) The result is a staggering example of the artist’s oeuvre with his inimitable aesthetic on full display.