KEITH HARING, SUBWAY DRAWING 1, SUBWAY DRAWINGS SERIES, CHALK ON BLACK PAPER, ORIGINAL, 1982
Showing some of the artist’s most iconic motifs, Subway Drawing 1 is an original piece from Keith Haring’s famous Subway Drawings series that he completed between 1980-85. Haring produced around 5,000 Subway Drawings, created with white chalk on blacked out advertising panels, working extremely quickly to avoid being arrested. Haring’s friend from the School of Visual Arts, Tseng Kwong Chi, would follow him around the subways and photograph his chalk drawings before they were covered or stolen.
Subway Drawing 1 features two frames depicting Haring’s famous ‘People Ladder’ motif, the top frame showing arms and legs growing out of a single trunk and the bottom frame showing two robotic figures stacked on top of one another. The ‘People Ladder’ motif in Haring’s work has come to represent a tower of break dancers stacked on top of one another to convey a sense of joy and community in a way that reflected the artist’s love of hip hop emerging in New York City in the 1980s.
Haring’s trademark linear style that characterises Subway Drawing 1, originated from his Subway Drawings series. Through obsessive repetition of motifs across the thousands of drawings that he completed, the artist produced a memorable pictorial language that was quick and simple to execute and immediately recognisable to the public.
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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.
