KEITH HARING, BAD BOYS 4, BAD BOYS SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT EDITION OF 30, 1986
Bad Boys 4 is a screen print from Keith Haring’s 1986 Bad Boys series that celebrates and advocates for safe sex in the LGBT+ community amidst the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This print shows an image of a male figure bent forwards and so as to show his buttocks, forming the focal point of the image.
Haring himself was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and subsequently the subject of sex and sexuality dominated his work in the latter part of his career, before his tragic death in 1990. This image is charged with a sense of fun as well as being sexually explicit in its subject matter. Haring’s use of free flowing lines that fill the interior of the figure’s body create a sense of energy and dynamism that catches the viewer’s eye.
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 Bad Boys series, a set of five prints in black and white that recall Haring’s subway drawings from the early 1980s.
Read more about Bad Boys by Keith Haring.
ABOUT KEITH HARING
Known for his bold graphic style and playful sense of humour, Keith Haring is one of the most influential and adored artists of the 20th century.
Born in Pennsylvania, in 1958, Haring was a talented draughtsman as a child and developed his cartoonish style at the hands of his father and the work of Walt Disney and Dr Seuss. However it would take some time before he realised he could marry this kind of drawing with being a fine artist. Upon graduating from high school he enrolled in a commercial art school before realising he had little interest in pursuing a career as an illustrator or graphic designer. After dropping out of college he joined the hippie movement and hitchhiked across the country where he made anti-Nixon t-shirts to pay for food and Grateful Dead tickets. Learn more about Keith Haring.
