Jean-Michel Basquiat was a Neo-Expressionist painter born in December 22, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York. He first began as a graffiti artist under the name “SAMO” in NYC then progressively started selling sweatshirts and postcards leading up to his fame. JMB struggled for 3 whole years before he gave away to fame in 1980, when his work was featured in a group show.
Later in the 1980’s JMB collaborated with Andy Warhol, which resulted in a show of their work. These two artists built an extremely deep friendship which was criticized very much among other people as they accused JMB of using Warhol for fame. More or less Warhol was a father figure for JMB.
JMB’s work and style consists of symbols, fusion of words, stick figures, and animals. He has a raw gestural style of painting with graffiti like images and sprawled out text. Lacking any formal training, Basquiat created highly expressionistic work that mixed graffiti and signs with the gestural and intuitive approach of abstract expressionist painting. Although much of his work addressed his personal angst in highly stylized self-portraits, he also alluded to African American historical figures, including jazz musicians, sports personalities, and writers. He appropriated and freely mixed motifs from African, Caribbean, Aztec, and Hispanic cultures and mixed “high art” references with images from popular culture, especially cartoons. In his earlier works, Basquiat was known for using a crown motif, which was his way of celebrating black people as majestic royalty or deeming them as saints. Describing the crown itself in further detail, artist Francesco Clemente posited: “Jean-Michel’s crown has three peaks, for his three royal lineages: the poet, the musician, the great boxing champion. Jean measured his skill against all he deemed strong, without prejudice as to their taste or age.”
His rise coincided with the emergence of a new art movement, Neo-Expressionism, ushering in a wave of new, young and experimental artists that included Julian Schnabel and Susan Rothenberg. Some quotes Basquiat is widely known for includes,
“I don’t think about art when I’m working. 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.“,
“I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.“.
Basquiat later died on August 12th, 1989, of a heroin overdose in his art studio at age 27. He started a movement among many other artists and made history with his life and art works.