Keith
Haring

From 1980, Haring began to create hundreds of drawings in New York’s streets and subways, calling these spaces his 'laboratory'. This occasionally led him to being arrested, however it often ended in the artist's favour. 'More than once,' Haring recalled, 'I’ve been taken to a station handcuffed by a cop who realised, much to his dismay, that the other cops in the precinct are my fans and were anxious to meet me and shake my hand'.

Many of Haring’s motifs from these early murals, tags and paintings would reappear in his later art. One of these is the Radiant Baby symbol, which Haring has used since his graffiti days. He called the crawling infant radiating rays of light 'the purest and most positive experience of human existence'.

Another early motif, showing two figures under a heart, has been used in many forms throughout Haring’s career. He considered it a universal symbol for love and continued to use heart icons and dancing figures throughout his later works.

In 1982, Haring joined the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in order to quit his day job as a cook and deliveryman and dedicate his time entirely to art. He was soon invited to participate in numerous solo and group exhibitions and became known for his street art style. By the mid-80s, Haring was exhibiting in international biennials and even designed a billboard for Times Square, an advertising campaign for Absolut Vodka and a Swatch watch, as well as painting murals all over the world.

Haring once said that 'Art is life, and life is art', and it is this all encompassing approach to art, alongside his prolific output, that brought him his success.

Ignorance = Fear, completed in 1989, is one of Haring’s most iconic artworks related to HIV/AIDS. Seeing the LGBTQ+ community devastated by epidemic, and himself diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, Haring used his art to raise awareness about the topic. The works he created often featured the pink triangle image, a symbol reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ rights movement after originally used during the Holocaust to mark those being targeted for homosexuality.

Other famous works were Haring’s Pop Shop prints. These playful, whimsical images were inspired by the artist’s commitment to making art accessible to all audiences. He opened Pop Shops in New York and in Japan, with their walls decorated with Haring’s murals, selling a range of t-shirts, badges, magnets and prints, starting at as little as 50 cents. While the project was praised by friends such as Andy Warhol, who was fascinated by the possibilities of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, Pop Shop was snubbed by many leading art world figures who placed more value on original works of art.

Speaking of the importance of opening the Pop shop, as opposed to making large canvases to please collectors, Haring said, 'I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art.'

Throughout his career, Haring collaborated with musicians, designers, writers and artists, including Grace Jones, Madonna, William Burroughs and Yoko Ono. But the most influential of them all was undeniably Andy Warhol. 'Warhol’s life and work made my work possible,' Haring once wrote, 'he was the first real public artist and his art and his life changed our conception of art and life in the 20th century'. Haring paid tribute to Warhol in a 1986 series entitled Andy Mouse that saw the famous Pop artist appear in Mickey Mouse shorts with his trademark spiky wig.

Haring’s works often confronted social and political events of the 1980s, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the drugs epidemic and Apartheid in South Africa. As an openly gay artist and activist in the LGBTQ+ rights movement, Haring used his art to fight against homophobia and advocate for safe sex, awareness and research around HIV and AIDS. He also created posters such as Crack Down in 1986 to raise awareness around drug abuse, as well as the Crack Is Wack mural in Harlem in response to the crack cocaine epidemic in New York City.

Haring was well known for his generosity, contributing his talents and resources to numerous causes throughout his career. He ran art workshops for children, created posters for public service agencies and produced murals, sculptures and paintings in the public domain

A year after his diagnosis with AIDS in 1988, he set up The Keith Haring Foundation to provide funding and support to AIDS research, charities and education. The Foundation continues to support not-for-profit organisations that assist underprivileged children and works to maintain and expand the legacy of Keith Haring, his art and his ideals.

After being diagnosed with AIDS, Haring was determined to continue creating as much art as possible, writing that 'work is all I have and art is more important than life'. He created his large-scale canvas The Last Rainforest in 1989, only a few months before he died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 31. The painting was one of Haring’s most remarkably detailed and virtuosic works and was initially supposed to be a part of a series of 100 paintings.

Sotheby’s sold the work as part of the David Lachapelle Collection in 2016, for £4.2million, stating 'It is a tempest; a melting pot where personal stories blend with societal issues and eroticism entwines with violence; where cruelty coincides with frivolity, and fantasy melds with inescapable truth. It should be viewed as Haring’s artistic last will and testament; a socio-political warning shot to those who would outlive him and a formal summation of his cruelly curtailed career. It is closely linked to his views on the AIDS crisis and on nuclear technology, and certainly connected to his environmental activism; it is densely packed with art-historical reference, and executed in a manner that demands the viewer’s attention.'

The most expensive Haring painting at auction, Untitled, sold for a record-breaking $6.5 million (£5 million) in May 2017. His prints can sell for up to six-figure sums. Signed editions are the most sought-after but unsigned editions also sell well, as long as they have been verified by the Keith Haring Foundation.

Beyond the art market, Haring’s legacy lives on through the work of his Foundation. His art is still used in collaborations with contemporary brands, like UNIQLO, Adidas, Originals and Element, which continues the artist’s hopes of making art available to more people.