KEITH HARING, FLYING DEVIL, ICONS SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, EDITION OF 250, 1990
Flying Devil is a print from Keith Haring’s Icons series (1990), a set of five screen prints each showing a single symbol rendered in his vivid and linear style. Using bold, rounded lines to cultivate a sense of energy and movement, this particular print depicts a striking red-winged devil with a cross on its chest, set against a bright yellow backdrop. Haring’s trademark graphic symbols, bursting with colour and vigour, work to create an open-ended visual language, seen and understood by thousands of people in New York City amidst the Cold War, the HIV/AIDS crisis and the crack epidemic.
The Icons series prints are rendered in flat, saturated colours as a nod to the rise of commercialism and mass production in Haring’s lifetime. Heavily influenced by Andy Warhol and the wider Pop Art movement of the 1960s, his work bridges the gap between high art and mass consumerism so as to dissolve boundaries between fine art, political activism and popular culture.
Haring’s Flying Devil, alongside others in the series like Angel and Radiant Baby, reworks redemptive imagery to critique the Christian religious fundamentalism and Jesus Movement of the 1970s. Soaring upwards to the heavens from the fires of hell, the devil figure in this print cultivates a sense of the profane to the viewer. Seeking a direct means of expression by using signs in place of words, Haring playfully communicates complex political and anti-religious messages through a positive visual language.
Read more about Icons 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.
