Execute Magazine

Artist a Day:  Jean Michel Basquiat 

Artist a day! JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)  Basquiat is unquestionably the most critical and prominent member of the graffiti movement that emerged in the New York scene in the early'80s. 

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  167.5 x 228.5 cm, 1981

Bird on Money

Basquiat's Works

This graffiti style was part of the Neo-expressionism movement. 

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  207 x 175.9 cm, 1981

Skull

Basquiat's Works

Basquiat's work is often described as 'pastiche', meaning an artistic work in a method that emulates another artwork, artist, or period.

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  183 x 122 cm, 1981

Irony of the Negro Policeman

Basquiat's Works

He used acrylic, oil paint stick, spray paint on canvas, linen, metal, paper, and markers, paper collages, crayons, and color transfer on printed paper.

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  193 x 239 cm, 1982

Boxer

Basquiat's Works

He also used found objects like old doors or windows and others to paint on.

Acrylic and crayon on linen,  254 x 289.5 cm, 1988

The Dingoes that Park their Brains with their Gum

Basquiat's Works

Basquiat's art centered on wealth versus poverty, assimilation versus division, and personal versus external reality. He allowed poetry, drawing, painting, united text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary evaluation.

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  297 x 290 cm, 1987

Riddle Me This, Batman

Basquiat's Works

Basquiat's career did not last long, notwithstanding his outsized reputation— He died at 27 of a heroin overdose in 1988.

Acrylic and pencil on canvas,  230 x 225.5 cm, 1988

Eroica I

Basquiat's Works

Basquiat's Untitled (Yellow Bone King) sold for $26 million in 2013 stayed at  Christie's New York.

Acrylic and oilstick on wood,  182.9 x 121.9 cm, 19828

Untitled (Yellow Bone King)

Basquiat's Works

This painting is one of today's most significant contemporary paintings and one of the known Jean Michel Basquiat's artworks.

Acrylic, crayon, and pencil on linen,  230 x 225.5 cm, 1988

Eroica II

Basquiat's Works

"I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life." "I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."

Famous Quotes by  Jean Michel Basquiat

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  249 x 289.5 cm, 1988

Riding with Death

Basquiat's Works

Acrylic and crayon on wood,  259 x 190.5 cm, 1984

Flexible

Basquiat's Works

Acrylic and crayon on canvas,  270 x 284.5 cm, 1987

To Be Tilted

Basquiat's Works

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