Name: The Story Of Red And Blue 1
Brand: Keith Haring
Rating: 5 (161 reviews)

Critical Review

This signed colour lithograph from 1990 is a limited edition of 90 from Keith Haring’s The Story Of Red And Blue series. Presented in the form of a children’s story book, this series is representative of Haring’s desire to create a visual language appealing to both adults and children alike. Throughout the series he limits his colour palette to bright red and blue and rendered each image in his distinctive linear style with black rounded lines.

The Story Of Red And Blue 1 shows an image of an unusual, bright red, animal-like figure with a long neck and nose, with a typical Haring stick figure balancing on this character’s nose. This is a playful and lively image that sets the tone for the images that follow in the series.

Haring’s use of action lines that radiate from the balancing figure and from this other character’s hand that points upwards creates a sense of dynamism and movement to the image. As though to poke fun at the stick figure, the character with the long neck points upwards to as the figure appears to be on the brink of falling from the long nose. Haring’s use of energetic line encourages the viewer to find a sense of joy from this print.