Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, USA in 1960. His father was from Haiti and his mother was of Puerto Rican descent. During his childhood, he visited museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and acquired an understanding of art. He was also influenced by reading Henry Gray's anatomical illustrations, "Gray's Anatomy."
In 1976, he transferred from high school in New York to City A's School, which offered art classes, where he met graffiti artist Al Diaz. The two formed the group "SAMO (Same Old Shit)" and began spray painting defiantly on subways and the streets. In 1978, he dropped out of City A's School. He ran away from home and lived at friends' houses, producing his own postcards and other items, even selling them to Andy Warhol. Around the same time, an article about "SAMO" was published in the newspaper "The Village Voice." They became a hot topic in New York, but broke up after a fight with Diaz.
In 1980, Basquiat's career as a painter began with his first public exhibition at the group exhibition "Times Square Show." His works were on par with those of up-and-coming artists of the time, such as Jenny Holzer and Kiki Smith. The following year, he participated in the group exhibition "New York New Wave" at PS1 and the "Lower Manhattan Drawing Show" organized by Keith Haring. A critique of his work was soon published in Art Forum magazine. In 1982, he held his first solo exhibition. That same year, he participated in Documenta 7 at the age of 21, the youngest artist to do so. In 1983, he moved his studio to a building owned by Warhol, deepening his relationship with him. In 1985, he held a two-person exhibition with Warhol. A photograph of Basquiat and Warhol dressed as boxers was used for the exhibition poster. Warhol died in 1987. In the same year, Basquiat produced the work "Gravestone" in memory of Warhol. In 1988, he died at the age of 27 from acute drug poisoning.
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In his short life, Basquiat produced over 3,000 drawings and over 1,000 paintings. In his early days, he painted skulls and human body diagrams that were influenced by Grey's Anatomy, then he developed into poetic drawings with only text, paintings on old boards and other canvases, and large-scale works with motifs meticulously drawn in seemingly random yet sophisticated compositions. In 1996, the biographical film Basquiat, directed by Julian Schnabel, a painter who was a contemporary of Basquiat, was released. In 2017, Yusaku Maezawa purchased Untitled (1982) at auction for approximately 12.3 billion yen.
