KEITH HARING, THE VALLEY PAGE 9, THE VALLEY SERIES, SIGNED ETCHING, EDITION OF 80, 1989
The Valley Page 9 is an etching from Keith Haring’s The Valley series from 1989 that shows a line drawing of a male torso with a knife violently thrust under his ribcage. Blood drips from the man’s wound and despite the simplicity of line, Haring’s print is charged with violence and gore.
The Valley series marked a new direction in Haring’s visual language that continued until his untimely death in 1990 at the age of 31. Alongside his Apocalypse series (1988), this series introduces stylistic shifts of more complex compositions and characters such as jesters, masks, skills and martyrs. Completed two years after Haring’s own AIDS diagnosis, The Valley Page 9 is indicative of the artist’s preoccupation with hellish narratives and death.
The ominous texts by William S. Burroughs are copied by hand on sixteen sheets of tracing paper, which were photo-etched onto copper plates and printed in red ink. The text which is also titled, The Valley, is a chapter from the author’s novel, The Western Lands from 1987. This print tells the story of a man who is killed at dawn by being stabbed, in order to avoid a more gruesome death from drinking the ‘Death Beer’ that Burroughs describes.
Read more about The Valley 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.
