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| | Haring, Keith | (American, 1958-1) |
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| | Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania. During his brief life, Keith Haring became a sensation in the art world with his bold, cartoon and graffiti influenced works during the 1980s. As a boy Haring was fascinated by the popular cartoon art of Walt Disney and Charles Schultz. When he grew older he moved to New York City, where the thriving underground art scene inspired and connected him with other artists such as Andy Warhol and William Burroughs. | | In 1982, Haring had his first New York one-man show at the Shafrazi Gallery. Not only did he create paintings and sculptures for the show, he engulfed the entire gallery with his bold color choices and frenetic designs. A critical success, he soon became one of most popular artists of the time with exhibits in Japan, Brazil, and many other countries. Haring experimented with performance, video, installation and collage, while always maintaining a strong commitment to drawing. In 1980, Haring found a highly effective medium that allowed him to communicate with the wider audience he desired, when he noticed the unused advertising panels covered with matte black paper in a subway station. He began to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels throughout the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring produced hundreds of these public drawings in rapid rhythmic lines, sometimes creating as many as forty "subway drawings" in one day
| | In April 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a retail store in Soho selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets bearing his images. Haring considered the shop to be an extension of his work. | | Keith Haring died of AIDS related complications at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990. During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring's work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. In 1986 alone, he was the subject of more than 40 newspaper and magazine articles. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century. |
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