“They form a perfect time capsule of my beginning in New York City.”
— Keith Haring, on The Blueprint DrawingsKeith Haring originally drew the images of The Blueprint Drawings over a period of weeks between December 1980 and January 1981, shortly before he began to breakthrough as a mainstream artist in New York, displaying his artwork on a Times Square billboard through the Public Art Fund in January 1981. As Haring explained of the time, “the original drawings were executed on vellum with Sumi ink because I intended to make blueprint copies of each of the drawings. Periodically I would take my drawings to the local blueprinters, where I had much enjoyment trying to explain the content of these works to the men who operated the blueprint machines. After a few weeks, everyone in the shop was familiar with my drawings. This was also the time I began drawing in the NYC subways.”
Keith Haring at the Paradise Garage, Soho, New York City, c. early 1980s, photographer unknown. The drawings were first exhibited at Westbeth Painter’s Space in February 1981, marking Haring’s first one-man exhibition in New York. Though Haring did not sell any of the original drawings during the exhibition – only a few of the blueprints sold – before the exhibition, Haring made photostats of each drawing, which became the basis for the screenprints. His last cohesive project, published just a month before his death in February 1990, the screenprinted Blueprint Drawings see Haring revisit some of his earliest exhibited work and his most recognisable motifs, which were largely deemed to be too violent or sexual to sell at the time of his first solo exhibition.
This is the fourteenth work of the series and it features four drawings contained in boxes reminiscent of a storyboard. There seems to be a comedic narrative following an encounter between two figures that involves one hitting the other’s head and it exploding. The forms pulse with life and exuberant movement through tightly dotted patterns, simple expressive lines, and a dynamic, comic book-style layout – elements that would later become emblematic of Haring’s distinctive visual lexicon. Through revisiting the early drawings as screenprints, The Blueprint Drawings offer a glimpse into Haring’s early development of his now-iconic stylistic hallmarks and themes, as he began to make a name for himself as an artist in the New York scene by communicating ideas relating to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, homosexuality and otherness through these bold, graphic symbols.Condition Report
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Provenance
Pace Editions, New York
Literature
Klaus Littmann p. 182
Artist Biography
Keith Haring
American • 1958 - 1990
Haring'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.
25
The Blueprint Drawings: plate 14 (L. p. 182)
1990
Screenprint, on Arches Cover paper, with full margins.
I. 97.8 x 114.8 cm (38 1/2 x 45 1/4 in.)
S. 107.8 x 123.3 cm (42 1/2 x 48 1/2 in.)
Signed, dated and numbered 3/33 in pencil (there were also 5 artist's proofs), published by Durham Press, Durham, Pennsylvania (with their blindstamp), framed.
Estimate
£15,000 - 20,000
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Evening & Day Editions
London Auction 23 - 24 January 2025
