With works by Andy Warhol and street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the sale is a Pop Art lover's dream come true. But to win at bidding, you needed to have deep pockets.
Image: Sotheby's/dpa/picture alliance
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Keith Haring's vital art
The late Keith Haring, icon of American pop art, remains as topical as ever. An exhibition at the Folkwang Museum in Essen proves how timeless his messages are.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Keith Haring: activism through creativity
Born in Pennsylvania in 1958, Keith Haring was one of the most influential artists of the 1980s. And had he not died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 31 in 1990, Haring would probably still be playing an important role in the art world today. His creative drive and sense of social criticism would certainly have found an audience in the Trump era.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
And then there was light
His style was built on simple lines and figures, which often were drawn in black and white. Yet Keith Haring's works remain timeless and are already classics. He rarely named his pieces; this drawing, created in 1981, is called "Untitled" — like so many other of his works. Even after 40 years, there's plenty of room for interpretation here: Who is the recipient of this illumination?
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Going underground
In the first half of the 1980s, much of Haring's work was dedicated to his "Subway Drawings." The New York subway served as his canvas during this time, when he created thousands of drawings. He would draw figures and symbols on small black panels that were actually intended to be used for advertising purposes. But his "stories" were so simple that even the rush hour crowd could relate to them.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Playing with little humans
Here's another work that bears no title, created in 1982. Haring would often use enamel paint and neon colors on metal. When it came to interpretations, he would rarely comment. To this day, people want to know what he was trying to say. What is this big red figure in the painting? Is it an animal that is taking some kind of revenge on little green humans? Is it juggling or singing to them?
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
Playing with symbols
But there also is some repetition among the motifs in Haring's imagery. Soon after the murder of John Lennon in 1980, he started to create drawings of people with holes in their bodies. In this example, Haring combined that motif with religious symbolism, creating a human cross. The death of the Beatles singer had left a strong impression on the artist.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
Saying 'no' to ignorance
Haring took a clear and strong stand against racism, homophobia and any other form of ignorance. This was especially the case when there was script to complement his motifs. Haring was aware that he, too, had contracted HIV, which at that time was still a fatal disease. He vehemently opposed any silence and repression around AIDS, which was particularly affecting the gay community.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
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Sotheby's auction house sold 140 works from the private collection of artist Keith Haring, including those from famous friends and pop art icons Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and fellow street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat - to the tune of $4,6 million (4 million euros). The amount fetched surpassed expectations by roughly three times.
The collection was expected to raise only $1 million dollars (€860,000), with the proceeds intended to fund a good cause — the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of New York (The Center), where Haring, who was openly gay, did one of his last large-scale murals in 1989 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
The items, ranging from watches to prints, were donated by the Keith Haring Foundation, which the artist founded shortly before his death. The online auction, titled Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring, commemorated the 30th anniversary of the famed street artist's death of AIDS/HIV-related causes in 1990. The sale took place online from September 24 until October 1, 2020, and could be viewed on exhibition in New York City on September 26.
Proceeds from the auction "For Keith" will go to an LGTBQ services center in NYCImage: Keith Haring Foundation
Advocate for safe sex
As a child growing up Reading, Pennsylvania, Haring could often be found drawing cartoons inspired by Walt Disney characters. But it wasn't until he moved to New York City in 1978 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and met artist pals such as Jean-Michel Basquiat that his career began to take off.
Although not considering himself a graffiti artist as such, Haring wanted his work to reach the public. Those riding the subway in 1980s downtown Manhattan were likely to recognize his signature outlines of people and animals, which were done on train carriages or station walls. Later, he created many large-scale murals outdoors, often funded as commissions.
The auction includes more than 140 items from the artist's personal collectionImage: Sotheby's
Today, his colorful works are part of the visual language of the USA in the 1980s. Haring's illustrations often incorporated political themes, and as the AIDS epidemic grew to epic proportions in NYC in the 80s — affecting many in his own circle — his work often advocated for safe sex.
He sometimes drew suggestive figures to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic, which US president Ronald Reagan didn't publicly acknowledge until 1985 after thousands had already died.
"An artist is a spokesman for a society at any given point in history. His language is determined by his perception of the world we all live in. He is a medium between 'what is' and 'what could be'," said Haring.
Keith Haring's vital art
The late Keith Haring, icon of American pop art, remains as topical as ever. An exhibition at the Folkwang Museum in Essen proves how timeless his messages are.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Keith Haring: activism through creativity
Born in Pennsylvania in 1958, Keith Haring was one of the most influential artists of the 1980s. And had he not died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 31 in 1990, Haring would probably still be playing an important role in the art world today. His creative drive and sense of social criticism would certainly have found an audience in the Trump era.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
And then there was light
His style was built on simple lines and figures, which often were drawn in black and white. Yet Keith Haring's works remain timeless and are already classics. He rarely named his pieces; this drawing, created in 1981, is called "Untitled" — like so many other of his works. Even after 40 years, there's plenty of room for interpretation here: Who is the recipient of this illumination?
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Going underground
In the first half of the 1980s, much of Haring's work was dedicated to his "Subway Drawings." The New York subway served as his canvas during this time, when he created thousands of drawings. He would draw figures and symbols on small black panels that were actually intended to be used for advertising purposes. But his "stories" were so simple that even the rush hour crowd could relate to them.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation/Muna Tseng Dance Projects
Playing with little humans
Here's another work that bears no title, created in 1982. Haring would often use enamel paint and neon colors on metal. When it came to interpretations, he would rarely comment. To this day, people want to know what he was trying to say. What is this big red figure in the painting? Is it an animal that is taking some kind of revenge on little green humans? Is it juggling or singing to them?
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
Playing with symbols
But there also is some repetition among the motifs in Haring's imagery. Soon after the murder of John Lennon in 1980, he started to create drawings of people with holes in their bodies. In this example, Haring combined that motif with religious symbolism, creating a human cross. The death of the Beatles singer had left a strong impression on the artist.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
Saying 'no' to ignorance
Haring took a clear and strong stand against racism, homophobia and any other form of ignorance. This was especially the case when there was script to complement his motifs. Haring was aware that he, too, had contracted HIV, which at that time was still a fatal disease. He vehemently opposed any silence and repression around AIDS, which was particularly affecting the gay community.
Image: Keith Haring Foundation
6 images1 | 6
An 'autobiographical' collection
As part of a wide circle of artists, Haring was gifted or traded many of the pieces that are now up for auction.
"The collection is remarkably autobiographical, just as any great collector’s estate is a window into their individual perspective" wrote Harrison Tenzer, Head of Sotheby's Contemporary Art Online Sales in New York, of the auction. "We see the progression of Keith’s life captured in these works, from those of his childhood friend Kermit Oswald, to SVA (School of Visual Arts) peers John Sex and Kenny Scharf, to fellow upstart Jean-Michel Basquiat, to graffiti writers Futura 2000 and Lee Quiñones, to his heroes Andy Warhol, Pierre Alechinsky and William Burroughs, who he collaborated with during his meteoric rise to fame."
A print of an American flag by pop art superstar Roy Lichtenstein titled "Forms in Space" was among the items that went under the digital hammer. One of Haring's favorites, the print hung above his fireplace for years.
Tenzer says the collection ultimately represents "a culturally fertile era in which artists and activists worked closely together to create a world that was more inclusive than the one they were born into."
As a child, Haring was inspired by cartoonsImage: Sotheby's
Many of the pieces in the Sotheby's sale were created by artists associated with Club 57, a queer club Haring and his friends frequented in the basement of an East Village church. The former house of God famously hosted all-night parties in the 1970s and 80s.
Works by Haring's fellow street artists such as Lee Quinones, John Matos, Lady Pink were also available to bidders online.
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Pals with Andy Warhol
While some works started at just $100 (€85) in an effort by the auction house to "present collecting opportunities at all levels," others were entirely out of budget for the average buyer. A striking Warhol print of Haring and his partner and lover Juan Dubose, who passed away from AIDS in 1988, opened on the auction floor at $250,000 (€214,600).
A watch that Andy Warhol (left) gave Haring (right) is on sale in the auctionImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Keystone
The auction came at an apt time for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center: as the New York Times reported last month, it's down $5.4 million (€4.6 million) in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic, while experiencing a 40% increase in requests for their services, such as mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment.
