Captured in 1970, a twelve-year-old Keith Haring leans against a porch column in his hometown of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, dressed in a suit and tie with thick rimmed glasses. Taken by his father, Allen, the photograph was used on the invitations for the artist’s 1988 exhibition Recent Work at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Shafrazi had represented Haring since the early 1980s, with the artist transforming the exhibition space into a club-like environment for his first one-man show with the gallerist in 1982. Due to the artist’s premature death in 1990, Recent Work would be Haring’s final exhibition at the gallery during his lifetime.
The present lot - annotated ‘For George’ and amusingly embellished with a phallus - was the personalised Recent Work exhibition invite from Haring to the esteemed publisher George Mulder of George Mulder Fine Arts. Mulder published many seminal editions by some of the twentieth century’s most important artists, partnering with Andy Warhol for his iconic Reigning Queens (1985) series, and collaborating with David Hockney on several prints in the mid-1990s. For Haring, Mulder published Andy Mouse (1986) and Apocalypse (1988) – two of the young artist’s most celebrated portfolios. A memento of their professional partnership, Haring’s humorous felt-tip pen additions to Mulder’s Recent Work invitation exemplify their jovial relationship. Mulder was so fond of this comical sketch by Haring that he reportedly positioned the work on his desk, where it was often admired at meetings by visiting artists and collectors.