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Keith Haring (1958-1990), the American Pop artist who went from drawings in the New York
subways stations to major museum retrospectives and whose images have become icons of the 20th
century moved to New York in 1978 to attend the School of Visual Arts, where his original approach was
soon apparent in graffiti-inspired style expanded into large-scale designs of generative energy. At the
height of the Punk Rock movement in the late 1970's he participated in the lively New York club scene,
working with other artists involved in the same movement such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. In the summer
of 1980 he took up drawing, inventing intricate cartoon-style murals of mutant figures locked in
hyper-physical engagement. He had become a star in American art during the 1980s, exhibiting and
working on projects throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, and his work became a symbol of
metropolitan life. His accessible imagery stems as much from Islamic and Japanese art as the sign
language of contemporary culture. In 1986 the artist opened his own retail outlet, The Pop Shop, in
New York and was continuously engaged in projects of an extraordinarily diverse nature, from murals
on the Berlin Wall to paintings on hot air balloons, motor cars and decorative accessories. He fell victim
to the AIDS epidemic and died at the age of 31 in 1990.
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