Anatomy, Right Humerus
Anatomy, Right Humerus
Signed Print
Jean-Michel Basquiat
76 x 56cm, Edition of 18, Screenprint, 1982
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Meaning & Analysis
Anatomy, Right Humerus is a signed screen print by Jean-Michel Basquiat, created in 1982 in an edition of 18. Four drawings of the upper arm bone stand side by side in white line on a black ground, labelled “Front View”, “Back View”, “Outer Side” and “Inner Side”, with “Right Humerus” written beneath. It is one of 18 prints in the Anatomy series.
The Anatomy prints were made in 1982, following Basquiat's first solo exhibition in New York at Annina Nosei Gallery. They reflect an interest that dates from his childhood: at the age of seven he was hit by a car and spent time in hospital, during which his mother gave him a copy of Gray's Anatomy. The textbook's illustrations remained a source for the skulls, bones and organs that appear throughout his work.
In Right Humerus, Basquiat borrows the format of a medical plate, showing the same bone from four angles with handwritten captions. The drawing, however, is loose rather than precise. The bones lean slightly, their ends are simplified into rounded lobes, and the line wavers in places, so that the image reads as a study made by hand rather than a scientific record. The white on black recalls chalk on a blackboard, adding to the sense of a lesson. The Anatomy series isolates individual parts of the body and presents them with a restraint that is unusual in Basquiat's work.
