Gay black painter
Jean-Michel Basquiat
(1960-1988)
Who Was Jean-Michel Basquiat?
Jean-Michel Basquiat first attracted attention for his graffiti under the name "SAMO" in New York City. He sold sweatshirts and postcards featuring his artwork on the streets before his painting career took off. He collaborated with Andy Warhol in the mid-1980s, which resulted in a show of their work. Basquiat died on August 12, 1988, in Recent York City.
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Early Life
Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, Recent York, on December 22, 1960. With a Haitian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat's diverse cultural heritage was one of his many sources of inspiration.
A self-taught artist, Basquiat began drawing at an early age on sheets of document his father, an accountant, brought dwelling from the office. As he delved deeper into his creative side, his mother strongly encouraged him to pursue his artistic talents.
Basquiat first attracted attention for his graffiti in New York City in the late 1970s, under the name "SAMO." Working with a close friend, he tagged subway trains and Manhat
The Jean-Michel Basquiat I knew…
It’s always tempting to mythologise the dead, especially those who die young and beautiful. And if the dead person is also astonishingly gifted, then the myth becomes inevitable. Jean-Michel Basquiat was just 27 when he died, in 1988, a strikingly gorgeous young man whose stunning, genre-wrecking work had already brought him to international attention; who had in the space of just a few years morphed from an underground graffiti artist into a painter who commanded many thousands of dollars for his canvases.
So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that everyone I talk to who knew Basquiat when he was alive, from girlfriends to collectors, musicians to painters, speaks about him as special. Still, it’s noticeable that they all do. Basquiat – even before he was established as an artist – was seen by his friends as exceptional.
“I knew when I met him that he was beyond the normal,” says player and film-maker Michael Holman, who founded the noise band Gray with Basquiat. “Jean-Michel had his faults, he was mischievous, he had certain things about him that could be called amoral, but setting that aside, he had something that I’m sure he had from th
The “Other” Lost Generation of Black American Artists in Paris
Originally, this was supposed to be a pretty straight-forward piece on an American ex-pat artist whose enchanting paintings of 1930s Paris I’d recently had the fortune of stumbling across via the internet. She was a young gal who had moved to France before the war, where her painting career began to flourish. I was going to share her Parisian street scenes with you, contact upon what I could find about the positive encounter she would’ve had as a fresh Black woman in pre-war Europe, and probably wrap up with a nod to her more notable abstract perform later produced while living in Haiti. But then, before I got the chance to note it up, the largest civil rights movement in planet history unfolded in the space of a week, and suddenly, nothing about her story felt “straight-forward” anymore. Ultimately, this one designer, Loïs Mailou Jones, would lead me to discover many more African-American artists like herself that came to Paris, whose legacies include been neglected, whose work is missing from art history books and the walls of our museums. She would also introduce me to her social co
Black History Month: 10 artists you should know
February is Black History Month in North America. It’s a time of recognition – of the importance of diversity and tolerance, but above all, of the achievements of black people in US history. This month is an opportunity to reflect on the experience of an entire community, their past trauma as well as their current, persisting struggles. In honor of Black History Month, we’d like to introduce you to 10 key artists that you should know.
1. Jean-Michel Basquiat
One of the major artists to know for Black History Month is Basquiat. He made it as a mixed-race creator in the 1980s, in a market that followed and perpetuated a pattern of categorically white elitism. Mixing various media and symbols, he drew inspiration from everything: an anatomy book, the streets of New York, pop identity or boxing – all the while retaining a preoccupation with mortality and a desire to illustrate the black condition. Tragically passing away from an overdose at the age of 27, Basquiat was an exceptional young designer who pushed the boundaries of the avant-garde. He experienced a meteoric climb to fame, and the value of his serve
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was a Puerto Rican/Haitian American musician known for his neo-expressionist paintings and graffiti art.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father. Basquiat grew up speaking Spanish, English, and French in a family that valued creativity. His father, Gerard, put on nightly musical performances for the family and his mother, Matilde, frequently took the family to museums. While he was recovering from injuries sustained after a car accident as a child, his mother bought him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. The physiological human imagery and forms would later shape his neo-expressionist artistic work.
In the late 1970s, Basquiat made a name for himself as a part of a New York graffiti artist duo with Al Diaz, using the tag “SAMO©” throughout lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. The tag of SAMO© continued to appear in Basquiat’s other works of art. At the age of 17, Basquiat dropped out of school and made wealth by selling hand-made postcards with fellow artist, Jennifer Stein. Basquiat was also a member of the noise rock band, Assess Pattern, later renamed Gray.