42
Keith Haring
Totem
- Estimate
- £70,000 - 100,000
£134,500
Lot Details
Carved plywood painted with enamel in colours,
1988
183 x 55.7 x 4.8 cm (72 x 21 7/8 x 1 7/8 in.)
signed, dated '88' and numbered 7/35 in black felt-tip pen on a plaque affixed to the reverse (there were also 7 artist's proofs), published by Edition Schellmann, Munich and New York.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
“The drawings I do have very little to do with classical, post-renaissance drawings, where you try to imitate life or make it appear to be life-like. My drawings don’t try to imitate life; they try to create life, to invent life. That’s a much more so-called primitive idea, which is the reason that my drawings look like they could be Aztec or Egyptian or Aboriginal… and why they have so much in common with them. It has the same attitude towards drawing: inventing images. You’re sort of depicting life, but you’re not trying to make it life-like. I don’t use colors to try to look life-like, and I don’t use lines to try look life-like. It’s also much more Pop, I guess, after growing up in a really carbon-and comic-dominated period. And, also, growing up with Pop art.“
-- KEITH HARING
-- KEITH HARING
Literature
Keith Haring
American | B. 1958 D. 1990Haring's art and life typified youthful exuberance and fearlessness. While seemingly playful and transparent, Haring dealt with weighty subjects such as death, sex and war, enabling subtle and multiple interpretations.
Throughout his tragically brief career, Haring refined a visual language of symbols, which he called icons, the origins of which began with his trademark linear style scrawled in white chalk on the black unused advertising spaces in subway stations. Haring developed and disseminated these icons far and wide, in his vibrant and dynamic style, from public murals and paintings to t-shirts and Swatch watches. His art bridged high and low, erasing the distinctions between rarefied art, political activism and popular culture.
Browse ArtistThroughout his tragically brief career, Haring refined a visual language of symbols, which he called icons, the origins of which began with his trademark linear style scrawled in white chalk on the black unused advertising spaces in subway stations. Haring developed and disseminated these icons far and wide, in his vibrant and dynamic style, from public murals and paintings to t-shirts and Swatch watches. His art bridged high and low, erasing the distinctions between rarefied art, political activism and popular culture.