Jean-Michel Basquiat
American, 1960-1988
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a transformative voice in late 20th-century American art, known for his fierce intellect, expressive energy, and engagement with themes of race, power, and identity. Born in Brooklyn to Haitian and Puerto Rican parents, Basquiat was a gifted child who absorbed language, art, and music with intensity. By his teens, he had left formal schooling and turned to the streets of Lower Manhattan, where he gained notoriety under the pseudonym SAMO by spray-painting enigmatic phrases on city walls.
By the early 1980s, Basquiat transitioned from street art to the gallery world, quickly earning international acclaim. His paintings, layered with text, symbols, and anatomical drawings, merged the raw immediacy of graffiti with cultural critique. Drawing inspiration from jazz and African art to Renaissance painting and contemporary politics, Basquiat developed a complex visual language that gave voice to Black experience within a predominantly white art world.
His collaborations with Andy Warhol and involvement in the downtown New York scene placed him at the center of a vibrant cultural moment. Despite his influential rise in art scene, Basquiat grappled with isolation and addiction. He died in 1988 at just 27 years old, but his impact has only deepened over time. Today, his work is housed in major museum collections and continues to influence artists, musicians, and thinkers around the world, standing as a powerful testament to art’s ability to confront history.