KEITH HARING, THE BLUEPRINT DRAWINGS 14, THE BLUEPRINT DRAWINGS SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, EDITION OF 33, 1990
Made up of 16 individual frames, The Blueprint Drawings 14 is a screen print from Keith Haring’s The Blueprint Drawings series from 1990. Produced as unique works on paper with Sumi ink, Haring originally displayed these works in a one-week exhibition in Manhattan in 1980 where not a single drawing was sold. However, he did find success in the sale of several blueprint copies of the original drawings and so revisited the subject in 1990, a month before his tragic death creating a portfolio of 17 screen prints of the original images.
The Blueprint Drawings 14 is presented in the graphic of a comic strip or storyboard, and the story plays out down each column from top to bottom before moving to the next column. In this story the central characters are a male figure and a dog, two of Haring’s most iconic motifs used throughout his oeuvre.
In the print there is a dotted landscape that the figure climbs into and then eventually drowns in, leaving the dog in the final frame seemingly infected by the dots. Haring uses dots in this print to convey the otherness of homosexuality and illness, specifically AIDS, and he depicts the process of transmission this unusual story.
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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.
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