Warhol, Basquiat & Haring: Three Artists, One Downtown
Why these three names belong in the same sentence — and why I keep coming back to them in the studio.
Some artists get grouped together by historians long after the fact. Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring got grouped together because they actually knew each other. In the early 1980s they were all circling the same downtown New York — the same clubs, the same galleries, the same restless idea that the street and the gallery were really one conversation.
Warhol was the elder statesman, and he took both younger artists under his wing. He and Basquiat became genuinely close — they worked out together, talked constantly, and made more than a hundred paintings side by side. For Basquiat it was part mentorship, part friendship, part something like family. When Warhol died in 1987, a lot of people felt it knocked the floor out from under him.
Haring orbited the same world and idolized Warhol growing up before becoming a real friend. He and Basquiat were peers who came up through the same scene — supportive rather than competitive, which was rare in a place that ran on rivalry. Three artists who refused to separate "high" art from pop culture, who embraced fame and commerce when the old guard found it vulgar, and who — heartbreakingly — all died young within a few years of one another.
The originals were created using decoupage of vintage magazine and silkscreen on canvas. They are no longer available for sale, but I'm open for commissions.
Want one for your own wall? Each portrait is also available as an archival print: Warhol print · Basquiat print · Haring print.