Keith Haring
American, 1958 to 1990 · catalogue KH · 742 records
Keith Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1958 and grew up in nearby Kutztown. After studying at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, he moved to New York in 1978 and enrolled at the School of Visual Arts. From December 1980 he drew in white chalk on the empty black advertising panels of the New York subway, and these drawings brought his bold line and figures, such as the Radiant Baby, to a wide public. Between 1982 and 1989 he painted more than 50 public murals, among them Crack Is Wack in East Harlem and Tuttomondo in Pisa. In 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo to make his work affordable to everyone. His art took up causes including the fight against apartheid, the crack epidemic and AIDS. In 1989 he set up the Keith Haring Foundation. He died of AIDS related complications in New York on 16 February 1990, aged 31.