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Lot Essay
“[Basquiat’s] work is likely to remain for a long time as the modern picture of what it looks like to be brilliant, driven, and young.Marc Mayer “(M. Mayer, “Basquiat in History,” Basquiat, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2005, p. 46).
Measuring over five feet tall, Untitled is one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most impressive portraits—a monumental figure acting as a spectacular example of the artist’s totemic heroes. Comprised of highly worked passages packed with confident gestures, combined with pure expressionistic flourishes, this tour-de-force proudly displays Basquiat’s skill as a master draftsman. In concert with his painterly masterpieces, this portrait boldly reflects his interest in art and history. Basquiat often indicated the heroic status of his subjects by adorning their heads with a crown or a halo. Likely inspired by the artist’s passionate travels to Italy in 1981-1982, in Untitled, our hero is decorated by a laurel wreath—a symbol of triumph, honor, and victory in Greek and Roman mythology. Remarkably, this commanding subject also retains a characteristic air of self-portraiture, demonstrating Basquiat’s desire to take his own place in the canon as a young Black artist living and working in New York. Drawn in 1982, when the artist was just 21-years-old, Untitled demonstrates Basquiat’s remarkable maturity and skill at such a young age. Exhibited in the artist’s definitive retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2019, Untitled stands as one of the most accomplished works of the master’s short but explosive career. So accomplished in fact, that shortly after the artist's tragic death in 1988, this was the painting chosen to represent the artist's oeuvre in The New York Times' report.
This man who audaciously locks eyes with us is composed of confident actions which represent the full range of Basquiat’s graphic arsenal. In the upper register, the artist lays down dense plates of color on top of which harried scribbles build up an almost three-dimensional image of this noble figure. The head is the result of successive applications of oilstick, with Basquiat building up layers of yellow, red, black and white to form the facial features. As such, Untitled is an exemplary example of how Basquiat used color to produce form. Beginning with a field of bold yellow, he then adds further layers of black to add both ‘shadow’ and body, before finally employing white oilstick to define the recognizable features such as the eyes, nose, and mouth. As with many of his best works, it is the intensity with which Basquiat embellishes these features that results in such a successful composition. Here, numerous applications of pigment, all applied in rapid circular motions result in a piercing—almost haunting—stare. Similarly, the figure’s intense grimace is only enhanced by the deliberative, forceful pressure of Basquiat’s application of oilstick. Building up consecutive layers of these energetic gestures imbues the figure with a dramatic sense of dynamic energy.
Basquiat’s iconic the three-pointed crown can be seen drawn in blue-green oilstick and placed jauntily on the left of the head; next—enveloping the head like a halo—are nine olive-green triangular leaf forms, evoking the wreaths of laurel leaves worn by Roman emperors. The rich symbolism of the laurel wreath originated in Greek mythology. It was later adopted by the Romans and worn by Julius Cesar to indicate his importance and godly status; the wreath’s circular form and use of evergreen material also symbolize continuous life and the immortality of the soul. Interspersed between the laurel leaves are darker elements—some short, some longer—which evoke the dreadlocks that Basquiat himself sported at this time, and which can be seen in photographs from the period. Such layering results in a complex figure, one that represents power, immortality, and triumph—much like the personification of Basquiat himself at the time.
The rest of this remarkable figure is rendered in the artist’s signature rudimentary fashion. The body emerges from a suite of defining gestures that map out the upper half of a torso with broad shoulders. The muscular frame is indicated by Basquiat’s use of two shades of blue, a lighter hue for where the light falls on the chest and a darker shade for where the shoulders are cast in shadow. The artist’s interest in anatomy (something which he developed as a child when his mother gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy to occupy him during a hospital stay) can be seen in the vertebrae that Basquiat renders with looping movements of his oilstick. Elsewhere, an array of gestures fills out the frame, which itself is defined with a frame of red oilstick.
The frenetic pace at which the artist worked can be seen in the numerous impressions of the soles of his shoes which are to be found throughout the sheet. The chaos of the artist’s studio, where he often worked on multiple compositions at once, with many others scattered around the room in various states of completion, act as an indication of the constant state of visceral energy with which Basquiat worked. As Robert Storr has written, “Scarred, torn, and trampled, much of his work on paper bears the direct imprint of his urgency. Drawing, for him, was something you did rather than something done, an activity rather than a medium” (R. Storr, “Two Hundred Beats Per Min.,” in J. Cheim, Basquiat Drawings, exh. cat., Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1990, p. i).
Untitled is one of Basquiat’s largest works on paper and widely considered his most important. As a draftsman, he constantly filled any surface he could with his rapidly drawn images, with inspiration coming directly from the world around him. Working in his studio against a steady beat of jazz music and cartoon programs, Basquiat’s unique amalgamation of art historical quotations and 80s street culture resulted in a complex assemblage of images and symbols constantly coursing through the young genius’ mind. Yet, despite his young age (Basquiat was just 21-years-old when he executed this work), Untitled displays a confidence that is rare among artists so young. As Storr continues, “…from the outset Basquiat’s fundamental confidence in the eidetic impact of his gesture was never in question” (R. Storr, “Two Hundred Beats Per Min.,” in J. Cheim, Basquiat Drawings, exh. cat., Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1990, p. i).
This intense working of the head in the present work aligns Untitled with many of the artist’s most celebrated paintings, particularly those from this important period, 1981-82. Here, the intense concentration of mark making that has been lavished on the bust notes the form as one of the artist's favorite technical pursuits. It not only reflects Basquiat’s almost da Vinci like obsession with the internal workings of the body but also how elements of human life fit together and make society function, “Basquiat’s repeated use of anatomical imagery—skeletons, musculature, and internal organs—coincides with an ever more widespread tendency in his work to turn things inside out” (J. Hoffeld, “Basquiat and the inner self”, in Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier (Paintings and works on paper), exh. cat. Museum Würth, Künzelsau, 2001, p. 27).
Although he never completed his formal education, Basquiat was a committed scholar who visited museums regularly and read many monographic studies of the great artists and their work. In addition to the strong references to da Vinci’s work, parallels have also been drawn between the haunting eyes in Untitled and the hypnotic stare of Gustave Courbet’s self-portrait Le Désespéré (The Desperate Man) (1843-45, Conseil Investissement Art BNP Paribas, Paris). The intensity of the palette in the present work has also been linked to the psychological drama portrayed in Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893, National Museum of Norway).
Among the museums that Basquiat frequented was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he studied the impressive collection of Greek and Roman sculptures. It was here that he identified the flatness of the faces that he witnessed in the ancient works (a stylistic quality of classical sculpture) and incorporated them into his own compositions. “Classical art, particularly sculpture, was certainly a recurring subject for the artist, who encountered such works in museums, via songs by mid-twentieth century musicians (e.g. Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa,” of 1950, or Miles Davis’s “Venus de Milo,” from 1957), and in the many textbooks and art catalogues in his personal library” (J. Moore Saggese, in S. Keller & I. Hasler, Basquiat. The Modena Paintings, exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basal, 2023, p. 60). Alongside the present work, the influence of classical art made it into a number of his works from the period including Untitled (Woman with Roman Torso [Venus]), 1982. It has been attributed, in part, to his desire for his own work to be seen as being part of the Western canon, while others have argued that by appropriating classical tropes and combining them with contemporary Black culture, Basquiat is trying to reclaim the history of own his personal heroes (musicians, sportsmen etc.) and insert them into the wider pantheon of his own cultural heroes.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most accomplished work on paper, Untitled acts as a summation of the artist’s prodigious talent. Painted in 1982 when he was at the height of his artistic powers, it not only amply displays his artistic abilities, but also his intellectual prowess too. In 1981, the year before the present work was executed, the critic Douglas Crimp had declared the end of painting, yet with Basquiat as the young pretender, the debate was given new vitality and relevance for a new, younger generation. As Marc Mayer, a former curator at Basquiat’s beloved Brooklyn Museum, has said, “A sophisticated and thoughtful artist with great resources of concentration, possessed of an unusual pictorial intelligence and an uncanny sense of unfolding history and of how to avoid its traps, Jean-Michel Basquiat was an articulate and prolific spokesman for youth: insatiably curious, tirelessly inventive, innocently self-deprecating because of youth’s inadequacies, jealously guarding his independence, typically disappointed by the inherited world he defensively mocked, yet filled with adulation for his heroes. His work is likely to remain for a long time as the modern picture of what it looks like to be brilliant, driven, and young” (M. Mayer, “Basquiat in History,” Basquiat, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2005, p. 46.).
Measuring over five feet tall, Untitled is one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most impressive portraits—a monumental figure acting as a spectacular example of the artist’s totemic heroes. Comprised of highly worked passages packed with confident gestures, combined with pure expressionistic flourishes, this tour-de-force proudly displays Basquiat’s skill as a master draftsman. In concert with his painterly masterpieces, this portrait boldly reflects his interest in art and history. Basquiat often indicated the heroic status of his subjects by adorning their heads with a crown or a halo. Likely inspired by the artist’s passionate travels to Italy in 1981-1982, in Untitled, our hero is decorated by a laurel wreath—a symbol of triumph, honor, and victory in Greek and Roman mythology. Remarkably, this commanding subject also retains a characteristic air of self-portraiture, demonstrating Basquiat’s desire to take his own place in the canon as a young Black artist living and working in New York. Drawn in 1982, when the artist was just 21-years-old, Untitled demonstrates Basquiat’s remarkable maturity and skill at such a young age. Exhibited in the artist’s definitive retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2019, Untitled stands as one of the most accomplished works of the master’s short but explosive career. So accomplished in fact, that shortly after the artist's tragic death in 1988, this was the painting chosen to represent the artist's oeuvre in The New York Times' report.
This man who audaciously locks eyes with us is composed of confident actions which represent the full range of Basquiat’s graphic arsenal. In the upper register, the artist lays down dense plates of color on top of which harried scribbles build up an almost three-dimensional image of this noble figure. The head is the result of successive applications of oilstick, with Basquiat building up layers of yellow, red, black and white to form the facial features. As such, Untitled is an exemplary example of how Basquiat used color to produce form. Beginning with a field of bold yellow, he then adds further layers of black to add both ‘shadow’ and body, before finally employing white oilstick to define the recognizable features such as the eyes, nose, and mouth. As with many of his best works, it is the intensity with which Basquiat embellishes these features that results in such a successful composition. Here, numerous applications of pigment, all applied in rapid circular motions result in a piercing—almost haunting—stare. Similarly, the figure’s intense grimace is only enhanced by the deliberative, forceful pressure of Basquiat’s application of oilstick. Building up consecutive layers of these energetic gestures imbues the figure with a dramatic sense of dynamic energy.
Basquiat’s iconic the three-pointed crown can be seen drawn in blue-green oilstick and placed jauntily on the left of the head; next—enveloping the head like a halo—are nine olive-green triangular leaf forms, evoking the wreaths of laurel leaves worn by Roman emperors. The rich symbolism of the laurel wreath originated in Greek mythology. It was later adopted by the Romans and worn by Julius Cesar to indicate his importance and godly status; the wreath’s circular form and use of evergreen material also symbolize continuous life and the immortality of the soul. Interspersed between the laurel leaves are darker elements—some short, some longer—which evoke the dreadlocks that Basquiat himself sported at this time, and which can be seen in photographs from the period. Such layering results in a complex figure, one that represents power, immortality, and triumph—much like the personification of Basquiat himself at the time.
The rest of this remarkable figure is rendered in the artist’s signature rudimentary fashion. The body emerges from a suite of defining gestures that map out the upper half of a torso with broad shoulders. The muscular frame is indicated by Basquiat’s use of two shades of blue, a lighter hue for where the light falls on the chest and a darker shade for where the shoulders are cast in shadow. The artist’s interest in anatomy (something which he developed as a child when his mother gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy to occupy him during a hospital stay) can be seen in the vertebrae that Basquiat renders with looping movements of his oilstick. Elsewhere, an array of gestures fills out the frame, which itself is defined with a frame of red oilstick.
The frenetic pace at which the artist worked can be seen in the numerous impressions of the soles of his shoes which are to be found throughout the sheet. The chaos of the artist’s studio, where he often worked on multiple compositions at once, with many others scattered around the room in various states of completion, act as an indication of the constant state of visceral energy with which Basquiat worked. As Robert Storr has written, “Scarred, torn, and trampled, much of his work on paper bears the direct imprint of his urgency. Drawing, for him, was something you did rather than something done, an activity rather than a medium” (R. Storr, “Two Hundred Beats Per Min.,” in J. Cheim, Basquiat Drawings, exh. cat., Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1990, p. i).
Untitled is one of Basquiat’s largest works on paper and widely considered his most important. As a draftsman, he constantly filled any surface he could with his rapidly drawn images, with inspiration coming directly from the world around him. Working in his studio against a steady beat of jazz music and cartoon programs, Basquiat’s unique amalgamation of art historical quotations and 80s street culture resulted in a complex assemblage of images and symbols constantly coursing through the young genius’ mind. Yet, despite his young age (Basquiat was just 21-years-old when he executed this work), Untitled displays a confidence that is rare among artists so young. As Storr continues, “…from the outset Basquiat’s fundamental confidence in the eidetic impact of his gesture was never in question” (R. Storr, “Two Hundred Beats Per Min.,” in J. Cheim, Basquiat Drawings, exh. cat., Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1990, p. i).
This intense working of the head in the present work aligns Untitled with many of the artist’s most celebrated paintings, particularly those from this important period, 1981-82. Here, the intense concentration of mark making that has been lavished on the bust notes the form as one of the artist's favorite technical pursuits. It not only reflects Basquiat’s almost da Vinci like obsession with the internal workings of the body but also how elements of human life fit together and make society function, “Basquiat’s repeated use of anatomical imagery—skeletons, musculature, and internal organs—coincides with an ever more widespread tendency in his work to turn things inside out” (J. Hoffeld, “Basquiat and the inner self”, in Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier (Paintings and works on paper), exh. cat. Museum Würth, Künzelsau, 2001, p. 27).
Although he never completed his formal education, Basquiat was a committed scholar who visited museums regularly and read many monographic studies of the great artists and their work. In addition to the strong references to da Vinci’s work, parallels have also been drawn between the haunting eyes in Untitled and the hypnotic stare of Gustave Courbet’s self-portrait Le Désespéré (The Desperate Man) (1843-45, Conseil Investissement Art BNP Paribas, Paris). The intensity of the palette in the present work has also been linked to the psychological drama portrayed in Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893, National Museum of Norway).
Among the museums that Basquiat frequented was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he studied the impressive collection of Greek and Roman sculptures. It was here that he identified the flatness of the faces that he witnessed in the ancient works (a stylistic quality of classical sculpture) and incorporated them into his own compositions. “Classical art, particularly sculpture, was certainly a recurring subject for the artist, who encountered such works in museums, via songs by mid-twentieth century musicians (e.g. Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa,” of 1950, or Miles Davis’s “Venus de Milo,” from 1957), and in the many textbooks and art catalogues in his personal library” (J. Moore Saggese, in S. Keller & I. Hasler, Basquiat. The Modena Paintings, exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basal, 2023, p. 60). Alongside the present work, the influence of classical art made it into a number of his works from the period including Untitled (Woman with Roman Torso [Venus]), 1982. It has been attributed, in part, to his desire for his own work to be seen as being part of the Western canon, while others have argued that by appropriating classical tropes and combining them with contemporary Black culture, Basquiat is trying to reclaim the history of own his personal heroes (musicians, sportsmen etc.) and insert them into the wider pantheon of his own cultural heroes.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most accomplished work on paper, Untitled acts as a summation of the artist’s prodigious talent. Painted in 1982 when he was at the height of his artistic powers, it not only amply displays his artistic abilities, but also his intellectual prowess too. In 1981, the year before the present work was executed, the critic Douglas Crimp had declared the end of painting, yet with Basquiat as the young pretender, the debate was given new vitality and relevance for a new, younger generation. As Marc Mayer, a former curator at Basquiat’s beloved Brooklyn Museum, has said, “A sophisticated and thoughtful artist with great resources of concentration, possessed of an unusual pictorial intelligence and an uncanny sense of unfolding history and of how to avoid its traps, Jean-Michel Basquiat was an articulate and prolific spokesman for youth: insatiably curious, tirelessly inventive, innocently self-deprecating because of youth’s inadequacies, jealously guarding his independence, typically disappointed by the inherited world he defensively mocked, yet filled with adulation for his heroes. His work is likely to remain for a long time as the modern picture of what it looks like to be brilliant, driven, and young” (M. Mayer, “Basquiat in History,” Basquiat, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2005, p. 46.).