“Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring” in a dedicated online Sotheby's auction open to bidding from 24 September to 1 October 2020.
Dear Keith will feature more than 140 artworks and items from Haring's personal collection, all donated by the Keith Haring Foundation, an organization founded by the artist shortly before his 1990 death from HIV/AIDS-related causes. Haring's collection includes works donated to, bought by, and traded with Haring among friends and artists in his community, including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and many others.
All of the works will appear at auction this fall for the first time, together revealing never-before-told stories about the Haring community and igniting New York's celebrated art scene of the 70s and 80s – from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and Club 57 to street art and beyond.
In keeping with the Keith Haring Foundation's mission to support and expand the artist's philanthropic legacy, all proceeds from the auction will benefit the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of New York (also known as The Center), an organization that empowers New York's queer community to lead healthy lives and successful; celebrates community diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity.
During his more than 10 years of living and working in midtown Manhattan, Haring has been involved in the queer/downtown art and activism scene. He executed one of his last large-scale murals, Once Upon a Time, in the second-floor men's room of The Center in May 1989 for The Center Show, a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that featured work by artists LGBTQ commissioned by The Center. That mural still stands today. Haring was devoted to all of his communities, from his family and friends to collaborators in both art and activism, and the Foundation is pleased to celebrate the enduring connection he has had with the Center through this gift.
Dear Keith: Works from Keith Haring's personal collection will be on display at Sotheby's York Avenue galleries from 26 to 30 September. Works carry estimates as low as $100, and works with low estimates under $10.000 will be offered without reservations, presenting collecting opportunities at all levels.
Keith Haring
Fascinated by cartoons from an early age, Keith Haring was best known for the striking graffiti-inspired drawings that took him from the streets and clubs of New York City to museums and public spaces around the world. While attending the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1978, Haring discovered a thriving art community of fellow emerging artists such as Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tseng Kwong Chi. Haring created a singular graphic style based on the primacy of line, populating his compositions with distinctive images such as dancing figures, 'radiant children', barking dogs and flying saucers, imbuing them with uncommon energy.
Between 1980 and 1989, Keith Haring achieved international recognition, participating in numerous group and solo exhibitions and producing more than 50 public artworks from New York to Paris. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, Haring created an enduring imagery that has been embraced around the world. Haring's works are in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albertina, Vienna, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and many others.
Shortly before his death in 1990, Haring founded the Keith Haring Foundation. The Foundation's mission continues to be threefold: to support organizations committed to enriching the lives of children, to advance HIV/AIDS-related care and education, and to promote the legacy of his artwork.
THE COLLECTION
Haring was greatly influenced by Andy Warhol who was both a friend and artistic collaborator. In 1989 he told Rolling Stone: “Before I met [Warhol], he was an image for me. He was totally unapproachable. I finally met him through Christopher Makos, who took me to the Factory. Andy was very distant at first. It was hard for him to feel comfortable around people if he didn't know them. Then he came to another show at the Fun Gallery, right after the show at Shafrazi. He was friendlier. We started talking, hanging out. We exchanged many works at that time. “
The auction includes a number of such works, including an untitled portrait of Haring with Juan DuBose – a DJ as well as Haring's partner and lover, who died of HIV/AIDS in 1988 (estimate $200/250.000) . Haring and DuBose had a passionate relationship for five years, driven mostly by physical attraction.
The sale includes a significant group of works by artists associated with Club 57, the night club located in the basement of a church in New York's East Village that quickly became one of the most influential centers of the city's countercultural movement when it opened its doors in 1978 Works by Jean-Michel Basquiat (Basquiat, 'Untitled', estimate $100/150.000), Tseng Kwong Chi, Stefano Castronovo, Samantha McEwen, Kermit Oswald, Kenny Scharf, Bruno Schmidt and John Sex bear witness to a definitive scene of the center fueled by low rents, opposition to the Reagan administration, and a desire to experiment with new modes of art, entertainment, fashion, music, and exhibition.
Kenny Scharf was particularly close to Haring: having become fast friends at the School of the Visual Arts, the two were roommates and often collaborated. The sale features works on paper by the artist, highlighted by his Untitled hand-painted framed watercolor on paper (estimate $18/25.000), as well as a number of hand-painted items.
The street art scene in which Haring worked in the 70s and 80s is well represented, including pieces by John “Crash” Matos, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Rammellzee and Basquiat, whose work he greatly admired. In his essay “Remembering Basquiat” published in Vogue, Haring wrote: “His work had a kind of power that was unmistakably 'real'. The intensity and frankness of the vision of him was intimidating. Jean-Michel was perhaps a little too real for us. He was uncompromising, disobedient and rude if the situation called for it. Not malicious, but honest. “
Another close friend of the artist was George Condo, who often worked from the studio in Haring's East Village. The sale comprises an excellent grouping of early drawings and paintings made by the artist in the 80s, including an untitled work on paper with the inscription: For Keith in Paris, so it's once before a bum I am… (estimate $12/18.000).
Haring also owned a number of works by established artists that he greatly admired, including Pierre Alechinsky, Jean Cocteau, Alberto Giacometti, Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso. The sale includes two prints by Lichtenstein, including Forms in Space from 1985 which took pride of place above the fireplace in his home (estimate $50/70.000). Lichtenstein attended Keith's first major exhibition in New York, as did Robert Rauschenberg and Sol Le Witt.
