Name: Stones 4
Brand: Keith Haring
Rating: 4.9 (224 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of Keith Haring’s Stones 4 (signed) is estimated to be worth between £10,000 and £14,500. This lithograph print, created in 1989, has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 3%. This work has an auction history of two sales since its entry to the market in April 2017. In the past 12 months, the average selling price was £10,594, across a total of 1 sold. The hammer price has ranged from £8,910 to £13,500. Over the past five years, the average return to the seller has been £9,005. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 60.

Auction Date

Auction House

Artwork

Hammer Price

Return to Seller

Buyer Paid

June 2024

Germann Auctions - Switzerland

Stones 4 - Signed Print

April 2017

Christie's New York - United States

Stones 4 - Signed Print

Meaning & Analysis

This signed lithography from 1989 is a limited edition of 60 from Keith Haring’s Stones series. Stones 4 shows a frame densely filled with bodies that seem to be growing from each other, out of two central trunks or stems. Figures are duplicated many times like Russian dolls, emerging out of each other with Haring’s characteristic energy and playfulness in a work that is evocative of his prolific output at this point in his life.

Writing of Keith Haring in the catalogue for the artist’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997, David Ross states that‘His use of simplified figurative abstract forms and his highly graphic style gave his works an immediate character, the complexity of his puzzlelike constructions pulled the viewer deeply into a unique picture space. Haring’s art radiated energy and he carefully directed that energy beyond the confines of the art world.’ This is evident in the Stones series, a suite of five prints in black and white that recall Haring’s early days spent drawing in white chalk on the empty advertising panels of the New York subway system.

Though there are countless examples of Haring’s screen prints on the market, his lithographs are rarer. Haring produced many large editions throughout his career, but each is characterised by the careful precision and vibrancy of the one that comes before it, demonstrating his mastery of the process.