On a cold Sunday in February 1985, Jean-Michel Basquiat graced the cover of The New York Times Magazine. Barefoot in his studio, he wore an elegant black suit with regal aplomb, kicking back comfortably above the headline: ‘New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist.’ Just 24 years old, the native Brooklynite’s singular blend of raw talent, ambition, and mystique took the art world by storm with paintings selling for up to $25,000 ($80,000 today), prompting proper consideration of the neo-expressionist painter, who had until then been largely misunderstood, marginalised, or labelled as “primitivist.”
During his brief but radiant life, Basquiat was, in the words of legendary writer Greg Tate, the “Flyboy in the Buttermilk” – a visionary who confronted, confounded, and subverted the system that flourished on the twin systems of extraction and exclusion of Black arts and culture. At the time of Basquiat’s death in 1988 at the age of 27, the art world had written him off, only for the artist to reemerge in death as one of the great masters of 20th century art. By 2017, Basquiat joined a rarefied group of artists including Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Leonardo da Vinci whose paintings could fetch over $100 million at auction – while also being splashed across all kinds of mass market merchandise.
While most life stories end in death, art world insider Doug Woodham uses this as the departure point for Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon (Thames & Hudson), the first biography of the artist in 25 years. Drawing from over 100 interviews with family, friends, gallerists, collectors, and contemporaries, Woodham masterfully charts Basquiat’s life, death, and apotheosis, which began in earnest with his father Gerard’s strategic positioning of the estate beginning in 1989.
