• 
• 
• 

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
signed (on the reverse)
coloured oilstick on paper
76.2 by 55.8 cm. 30 by 22 in.
Executed in 1982.

This artwork has generously been loaned to the exhibition.

Enquire

Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
Christie's, Los Angeles, 14 December 1999, Lot 321
Private Collection
Christie's, New York, 18 May 2001, Lot 491
Acquired directly from the above sale by the present owner

E lectric in its intensity, this rare, full figural composition powerfully captures the meteoric force of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s genius. Executed at the apex of his creativity in 1982, Basquiat channels fierce energy through the figure’s every limb, the flayed anatomy and outstretched extremities pulsating in cadmium reds and midnight blues, edged by a corona of electric yellow. For the serious collector, this sheet is more than a rare 1982 work on paper; it is a manifesto of Basquiat’s vision at the moment he rewrote the language of contemporary art. With forceful strokes of oil stick resulting in boldly drawn lines, Basquiat conjures a super-human who is at once heroic and vulnerable. Encircled by a halo against an otherwise pristine sheet, the figure commands a minimalist field that intensifies its presence.

This drawing’s immediacy is breathtaking: black contour lines slash and twist like live wires, while the exposed musculature recalls Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomical studies of flayed cadavers, which the artist knew and admired. Basquiat’s mother gifted the 19th Century illustrated medical text, Gray's Anatomy, to her son at age 7 while he was convalescing from a car accident that resulted in the loss of his spleen. Thus began the artist’s lifelong fascination with the complexity, fragility and power of the human body, which culminates in the present work.

The years 1981-1982 marked a critical juncture for Basquiat, who transitioned from graffiti artist, SAMO, to industry darling with astonishing speed. In 1982 alone, the year this work was executed, Basquiat received his first solo exhibition in New York with Annina Nosei Gallery, was discovered and shown by Larry Gagosian in Los Angeles, and exhibited by Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich, and was invited to participate in Documenta 7, the prestigious exhibition held every three years in Kassel, Germany. Basquiat was the youngest participant among 176 artists chosen to participate, which cemented his reputation among the contemporary art cognoscenti.

Basquiat leveled cultural references in art and life with a primal energy hitherto unseen in the art world. As illustrated in the present work, the lone, airborne figure combines elements of Super-Man, a fascination of Basquiat’s from a young age, with the American track and field star Jesse Owens, the first athlete to win 4 gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The idea of a masked man, the attribute of a superhero, dovetails with Basquiat’s interest in Dogon masks, which Picasso and Matisse had appropriated at the turn of the 20th century, re-writing the canon of art. But Basquiat’s appropriation of the tribal mask nearly a century later is diasporic and directly related to his own identity as Black male, as is his reference to Jesse Owens.

Basquiat possibly alludes to Owens in the present work by describing in tense yellow lines an architectural framework suggestive of a sprinter’s hurdle. Like Basquiat, Owens overcame societal disadvantages to achieve worldwide fame through his prowess. Owens was 22 when he made history at the Olympics; Basquiat was 21 when he painted this work, evolving in two short years from an outsider writing illegal graffiti on trains, into a highly sought-after artist exhibiting alongside the greatest artists of the 20th century, such as Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso. The following year, Basquiat would make an oil painting in explicit homage to Jessie Ownes depicting a winged foot.

In addition to quoting from popular culture and personal heroes, Basquiat appropriated from key figurative artists of the 20th century, such as Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti. Bacon is a likely source for this composition, in which Basquiat heightens tension by juxtaposing the figure with an architectural enclosure.

Bacon often placed the male body within a ring or stage, implying violent action. In their figural compositions, both artists blurred the lines between vitality and brutality, using architectural frameworks to heighten psychological fragility. The extreme verticality of the figure in this composition is reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti’s attenuated bronze sculptures. Stretched almost to the point of breaking, the figure rises like a living filament, creating a taut upward thrust that resists gravity.

Each stroke of oil stick accumulates on top of the next, not unlike Giacometti’s massing of evidently worked bronze. However, the figures do not share the same attitude: Giacometti’s standing man tenuously exists in a Post-War European, metaphysical void; while Basquiat’s self-possessed figure boldly owns the page. Confronting the challenge of being heroic and vulnerable at the same time, Basquiat’s subject presents the viewer with a new concept of American male, an alter-ego emblematic of psychic exposure in 1980s New York.

Phoebe Hoban, in her widely regarded monograph, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, from 1998, captures the facility and range of Basquiat’s appropriative strategies observing that, “Basquiat’s work, like that of most of his peers, was based on appropriation... the images he appropriated whether they were from the Bible or a chemistry textbook... became part of his original vocabulary... Basquiat combined and recombined these idiosyncratic symbols throughout his career: the recursive references to anatomy, black culture, television and history are his personal hieroglyphics. (Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, New York 1998, p.332)

With alacrity, in this work Basquiat uniquely synthesizes components appropriated from art history, animation and anatomical studies with meaningful cultural heroes, blending street aesthetics with fine art to re-write established artistic traditions. Untitled, 1982 encapsulates Basquiat’s engagement with human anatomy, identity politics, and the dialectics of power, an approach deeply rooted in both art history and the socio-political realities of the late 20th century.

This work is unmistakably Basquiat, and for the serious collector, it is more than a rare 1982 full-figure work on paper; it is a manifesto of Basquiat’s vision at the pivotal moment that he emerged as a unique voice that forever changed the course of art. Its scale, color, and draftsmanship place this work among the most important Basquiat drawings ever to reach the market, an indelible testament to a talent that continues to shape the canon.