Jean Michel Basquiat: Major Talent

1961- 1988

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was the first child of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. He had two younger sisters: Lisane, born in 1964, and Jeanine, born in 1967. His father, Gerard Basquiat, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother, Matilde Basquiat, was of Puerto Rican descent, and was born in Brooklyn, New York.

Basquiat was a highly intelligent child who knew how to read and write by age four. His teachers noticed his artistic abilities, and his mother encouraged her son's talent. By the age of eleven, Basquiat was trilingual: he could speak, read, and write French, Spanish and English.

Basquiat dropped out of school in the tenth grade. His father kicked him from the house and Basquiat moved in with friends in Brooklyn. He supported himself by selling T-shirts and post cards and he worked at a clothing warehouse in Manhattan. At 15, Basquiat ran away from home. He slept on park benches in Washington Square Park, and was arrested and returned to the care of his father. His parents had separated that year and he and his sisters were ultimately raised by their father.

Before his career as a painter began, Basquiat was selling his art on the street, and become famous for the political–poetical graffiti group he was a part of that signed their name SAMO on their graffiti. In 1976, Basquiat, Al Diaz and Shannon Dawson began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, under the pseudonym SAMO. (Same old Shit) Basquiat often incorporated carefully chosen words into his work. Basquiat met Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, who also found inspiration in the graffiti and street art scene of the day. The SAMO’s graffiti’s messages were intentionally obscure: "Plush safe he think.” and "SAMO as an escape clause." SAMO got the group infamy and attention in New York, which was no easy feat.

In 1981, Basquiat went through a major period in his life and career. He drew from his own life experience as a mode of exploring the endless conundrum of humanity. He produced five major works over an eighteen-month period: Untitled (Head), Acque Pericolose, Per Capita, Notary, and La Colomba. These pieces not only help viewer gain insight into this period in Basquiat’s personal life but illustrate the depth of the Basquiat’s understanding of the human experience.

Much has been written about the artist’s “homeless genius” persona and his important role in the rebirth of the New York art world, however there has been little critical acknowledgement of the talent that Basquiat possessed. He was a major painter of the 1980’s.

Throughout his career Basquiat focused on dualities: wealth and poverty, integration and segregation, fame and loneliness. Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 in 1988.

http://basquiat.com/


Melissa Montgomery