Artists : Jean-Michel Basquiat

A self-taught artist, Basquiat first attracted attention for his graffiti in New York City in the late 1970s, under the pseudonym SAMO and soon became a key figure of the 1980s New York underground scene. He created deeply personal, often autobiographical, images by drawing from such disparate fields as urban street culture, music, poetry, Christian iconography, African-American and Aztec cultural histories and a broad range of art historical sources. The first retrospective of his art was held by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1992. More recently, in 2017, the Barbican Centre in London exhibited 'Basquiat: Boom for Real', the first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the work of the American artist. In May 2017, at a Sotheby's auction, Basquiat's 1982 painting 'Untitled' set a new record high for any U.S. artist at auction, selling for $110,500,000. It is the most ever paid for an American artwork and the sixth most expensive artwork sold at an auction.