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Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

American, 1958-1990

Keith Haring began experimenting with his bold, graphic lines and cartoon-inspired figures on the walls of New York City subway stations in the early 1980s. He called them his “laboratory,” places to develop a radical new aesthetic based on an ideology of creating truly democratic public art.

Haring’s paintings, prints and murals address the universal themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. They derive much of their impact from the powerful contrast between these serious subjects and the joyful, vibrant pictographic language he uses to express them, full of dancing figures, babies, barking dogs, hearts and rhythmic lines, as well as references to pop culture.

To make his art even more accessible, in 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop in Soho. In a foreshadowing of today’s intermingling of art and fashion, the shop sold merchandise and novelty items featuring imagery by Haring and contemporaries like Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. While his works sometimes included text, for the most part, he chose to communicate through drawing. 

“Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times,” Haring once declared. “It lives through magic.”

Find Keith Haring art on 1stDibs today.

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Artist: Keith Haring
Original handwritten Letter of thanks, hand signed by Keith Haring on letterhead
By Keith Haring
Located in New York, NY
Keith Haring Original Handwritten, hand signed Letter, ca. 1987 Ink on Haring's Private letterhead Stationery, Hand written and hand signed by Keith...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Permanent Marker

Keith Haring, Untitled (Black ink drawing atop a Japanese Guardian Figure print)
By Keith Haring
Located in San Francisco, CA
In February 1983, Keith Haring made his first visit to Japan to host an exhibition of his work in Tokyo. Enthralled by the experience, he let loose his spray cans covering every inch...
Category

1980s Contemporary Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink

Keith Haring Crawling Baby Drawing c.1983
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Keith Haring Crawling Baby drawing circa 1983: This rare original, early 1980s Keith Haring drawing was executed by the artist on printed material from ...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Lithograph, Offset, Ink

Keith Haring drawing 1989 (Keith Haring 1989)
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Keith Haring (untitled) 1989 drawing: This original 1980s Keith Haring drawing was executed by the artist on the occasion of Art Cologne Germany 1989. The w...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Permanent Marker

Keith Haring Drawing 1983 (Keith World Tour hat)
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
1983 Keith Haring Dancing Figures drawing on Keith Haring World Tour hat: A rare, historic Keith Haring collectible featuring a sharply executed black mar...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Cotton, Ink

Baby Drawing
By Keith Haring
Located in Washington , DC, DC
"RADIANT BABY" DRAWING on the catalogue endpaper executed the evening of the Los Angeles gallery exhibition of ten paintings on canvas, thirty bl...
Category

1980s Contemporary Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Permanent Marker, Paper

Baby Drawing
$10,800 Sale Price
20% Off
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Handwritten letter on American Indian Theme II card signed to CBS News cameraman
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Roy Lichtenstein Handwritten note on card ink on paper hand signed by Roy Lichtenstein The card reads "Thank you so much for the wonderful prints Very kind of you to send them to me Best regards, Roy Lichtenstein This card depicts Roy Lichtenstein's American Indian Theme II (from American Indian Theme Series), 1980, Woodcut in colors on Suzuki handmade paper Provenance: This card was acquired from Dan Pope, a longtime CBS photographer and cameraman, who had amassed a superb collection of autographs by visual artists over many decades. This work has been elegantly floated and framed in a museum quality wood frame under UV plexiglass. Measurements: Framed 14.75 inches vertical by 11.5 horizontal by 1.5 inches depth Card (image) Roy Lichtenstein Biography Roy Lichtenstein was one of the most influential and innovative artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He is preeminently identified with Pop Art, a movement he helped originate, and his first fully achieved paintings were based on imagery from comic strips and advertisements and rendered in a style mimicking the crude printing processes of newspaper reproduction. These paintings reinvigorated the American art scene and altered the history of modern art. Lichtenstein’s success was matched by his focus and energy, and after his initial triumph in the early 1960s, he went on to create an oeuvre of more than 5,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, murals and other objects celebrated for their wit and invention. Roy Fox Lichtenstein was born on October 27, 1923, in New York City, the first of two children born to Milton and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein. Milton Lichtenstein (1893–1946) was a successful real estate broker, and Beatrice Lichtenstein (1896–1991), a homemaker, had trained as a pianist, and she exposed Roy and his sister Rénee to museums, concerts and other aspects of New York culture. Roy showed artistic and musical ability early on: he drew, painted and sculpted as a teenager, and spent many hours in the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art. He played piano and clarinet, and developed an enduring love of jazz, frequenting the nightspots in Midtown to hear it. Lichtenstein attended the Franklin School for Boys, a private junior high and high school, and was graduated in 1940. That summer he studied painting and drawing from the model at the Art Students League of New York with Reginald Marsh. In September he entered Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus in the College of Education. His early artistic idols were Rembrandt, Daumier and Picasso, and he often said that Guernica (1937; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid), then on long-term loan to the Museum of Modern Art, was his favorite painting. Even as an undergraduate, Lichtenstein objected to the notion that one set of lines (one person’s drawings) “was considered brilliant, and somebody’s else’s, that may have looked better to you, was considered nothing by almost everyone.”i Lichtenstein’s questioning of accepted canons of taste was encouraged by Hoyt L. Sherman, a teacher whom he maintained was the person who showed him how to see and whose perception-based approach to art shaped his own. In February 1943, Lichtenstein was drafted, and he was sent to Europe in 1945. As part of the infantry, he saw action in France, Belgium and Germany. He made sketches throughout his time in Europe and, after peace was declared there, he intended to study at the Sorbonne. Lichtenstein arrived in Paris in October 1945 and enrolled in classes in French language and civilization, but soon learned that his father was gravely ill. He returned to New York in January 1946, a few weeks before Milton Lichtenstein died. In the spring of that year, Lichtenstein went back to OSU to complete his BFA and in the fall he was invited to join the faculty as an instructor. In June 1949, he married Isabel Wilson Sarisky (1921–80), who worked in a cooperative art gallery in Cleveland where Lichtenstein had exhibited his work. While he was teaching, Lichtenstein worked on his master’s degree, which he received in 1949. During his second stint at OSU, Lichtenstein became closer to Sherman, and began teaching his method on how to organize and unify a composition. Lichtenstein remained appreciative of Sherman’s impact on him. He gave his first son the middle name of “Hoyt,” and in 1994 he donated funds to endow the Hoyt L. Sherman Studio Art Center at OSU. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Lichtenstein began working in series and his iconography was drawn from printed images. His first sustained theme, intimate paintings and prints in the vein of Paul Klee that poked lyrical fun at medieval knights, castles and maidens, may well have been inspired by a book about the Bayeux Tapestry. Lichtenstein then took an ironic look at nineteenth-century American genre paintings he saw in history books, creating Cubist interpretations of cowboys and Indians spiked with a faux-primitive whimsy. As with his most celebrated Pop paintings of the 1960s, Lichtenstein gravitated toward what he would characterize as the “dumbest” or “worst” visual item he could find and then went on to alter or improve it. In the 1960s, commercial art was considered beneath contempt by the art world; in the early 1950s, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism, nineteenth-century American narrative and genre paintings were at the nadir of their reputation among critics and collectors. Paraphrasing, particularly the paraphrasing of despised images, became a paramount feature of Lichtenstein’s art. Well before finding his signature mode of expression in 1961, Lichtenstein called attention to the artifice of conventions and taste that permeated art and society. What others dismissed as trivial fascinated him as classic and idealized—in his words, “a purely American mythological subject matter.”ii Lichtenstein’s teaching contract at OSU was not renewed for the 1951–52 academic year, and in the autumn of 1951 he and Isabel moved to Cleveland. Isabel Lichtenstein became an interior decorator specializing in modern design, with a clientele drawn from wealthy Cleveland families. Whereas her career blossomed, Lichtenstein did not continue to teach at the university level. He had a series of part-time jobs, including industrial draftsman, furniture designer, window dresser and rendering mechanical dials for an electrical instrument company. In response to these experiences, he introduced quirkily rendered motors, valves and other mechanical elements into his paintings and prints. In 1954, the Lichtensteins’ first son, David, was born; two years later, their second child, Mitchell, followed. Despite the relative lack of interest in his work in Cleveland, Lichtenstein did place his work with New York dealers, which always mattered immensely to him. He had his first solo show at the Carlebach Gallery in New York in 1951, followed by representation with the John Heller Gallery from 1952 to 1957. To reclaim his academic career and get closer to New York, Lichtenstein accepted a position as an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Oswego, in the northern reaches of the state. He was hired to teach industrial design, beginning in September 1957. Oswego turned out to be more geographically and aesthetically isolated than Cleveland ever was, but the move was propitious, for both his art and his career. Lichtenstein broke away from representation to a fully abstract style, applying broad swaths of pigment to the canvas by dragging the paint across its surface with a rag wrapped around his arm. At the same time, Lichtenstein was embedding comic-book characters figures such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in brushy, expressionistic backgrounds. None of the proto-cartoon paintings from this period survive, but several pencil and pastel studies from that time, which he kept, document his intentions. Finally, when he was in Oswego, Lichtenstein met Reginald Neal, the new head of the art department at Douglass College, the women’s college of Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The school was strengthening and expanding its studio art program, and when Neal needed to add a faculty member to his department, Lichtenstein was invited to apply for the job. Lichtenstein was offered the position of assistant professor, and he began teaching at Douglass in September 1960. At Douglass, Lichtenstein was thrown into a maelstrom of artistic ferment. With New York museums and galleries an hour away, and colleagues Geoffrey Hendricks and Robert Watts at Douglass and Allan Kaprow and George Segal at Rutgers, the environment could not help but galvanize him. In June 1961, Lichtenstein returned to the idea he had fooled around with in Oswego, which was to combine cartoon characters from comic books with abstract backgrounds. But, as Lichtenstein said, “[I]t occurred to me to do it by mimicking the cartoon style without the paint texture, calligraphic line, modulation—all the things involved in expressionism.”iii Most famously, Lichtenstein appropriated the Benday dots, the minute mechanical patterning used in commercial engraving, to convey texture and gradations of color—a stylistic language synonymous with his subject matter. The dots became a trademark device forever identified with Lichtenstein and Pop Art. Lichtenstein may not have calibrated the depth of his breakthrough immediately but he did realize that the flat affect and deadpan presentation of the comic-strip panel blown up and reorganized in the Sherman-inflected way “was just so much more compelling”iv than the gestural abstraction he had been practicing. Among the first extant paintings in this new mode—based on comic strips and illustrations from advertisements—were Popeye and Look Mickey, which were swiftly followed by The Engagement Ring, Girl with Ball and Step-on Can with Leg. Kaprow recognized the energy and radicalism of these canvases and arranged for Lichtenstein to show them to Ivan Karp, director of the Leo Castelli Gallery. Castelli was New York’s leading dealer in contemporary art, and he had staged landmark exhibitions of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in 1958 and Frank Stella in 1960. Karp was immediately attracted to Lichtenstein’s paintings, but Castelli was slower to make a decision, partly on account of the paintings’ plebeian roots in commercial art, but also because, unknown to Lichtenstein, two other artists had recently come to his attention—Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist—and Castelli was only ready for one of them. After some deliberation, Castelli chose to represent Lichtenstein, and the first exhibition of the comic-book paintings was held at the gallery from February 10 to March 3, 1962. The show sold out and made Lichtenstein notorious. By the time of Lichtenstein’s second solo exhibition at Castelli in September 1963, his work had been showcased in museums and galleries around the country. He was usually grouped with Johns, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Rosenquist, Segal, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana and Tom Wesselmann. Taken together, their work was viewed as a slap in the face to Abstract Expressionism and, indeed, the Pop artists shifted attention away from many members of the New York School. With the advent of critical and commercial success, Lichtenstein made significant changes in his life and continued to investigate new possibilities in his art. After separating from his wife, he moved from New Jersey to Manhattan in 1963; in 1964, he resigned from his teaching position at Douglass to concentrate exclusively on his work. The artist also ventured beyond comic book subjects, essaying paintings based on oils by Cézanne, Mondrian and Picasso, as well as still lifes and landscapes. Lichtenstein became a prolific printmaker and expanded into sculpture, which he had not attempted since the mid-1950s, and in both two- and three-dimensional pieces, he employed a host of industrial or “non-art” materials, and designed mass-produced editioned objects that were less expensive than traditional paintings and sculpture. Participating in one such project—the American Supermarket show in 1964 at the Paul Bianchini Gallery, for which he designed a shopping bag—Lichtenstein met Dorothy Herzka (b. 1939), a gallery employee, whom he married in 1968. The late 1960s also saw Lichtenstein’s first museum surveys: in 1967 the Pasadena Art Museum initiated a traveling retrospective, in 1968 the Stedelijk Musem in Amsterdam presented his first European retrospective, and in 1969 he had his first New York retrospective, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Wanting to grow, Lichtenstein turned away from the comic book subjects that had brought him prominence. In the late 1960s his work became less narrative and more abstract, as he continued to meditate on the nature of the art enterprise itself. He began to explore and deconstruct the notion of brushstrokes—the building blocks of Western painting. Brushstrokes are conventionally conceived as vehicles of expression, but Lichtenstein made them into a subject. Modern artists have typically maintained that the subject of a painting is painting itself. Lichtenstein took this idea one imaginative step further: a compositional element could serve as the subject matter of a work and make that bromide ring true. The search for new forms and sources was even more emphatic after 1970, when Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein bought property in Southampton, New York, and made it their primary residence. During the fertile decade of the 1970s, Lichtenstein probed an aspect of perception that had steadily preoccupied him: how easily the unreal is validated as the real because viewers have accepted so many visual conceptions that they don’t analyze what they see. In the Mirror series, he dealt with light and shadow upon glass, and in the Entablature series, he considered the same phenomena by abstracting such Beaux-Art architectural elements as cornices, dentils, capitals and columns. Similarly, Lichtenstein created pioneering painted bronze sculpture that subverted the medium’s conventional three-dimensionality and permanence. The bronze forms were as flat and thin as possible, more related to line than volume, and they portrayed the most fugitive sensations—curls of steam, rays of light and reflections on glass. The steam, the reflections and the shadow were signs for themselves that would immediately be recognized as such by any viewer. Another entire panoply of works produced during the 1970s were complex encounters with Cubism, Futurism, Purism, Surrealism and Expressionism. Lichtenstein expanded his palette beyond red, blue, yellow, black, white and green, and invented and combined forms. He was not merely isolating found images, but juxtaposing, overlapping, fragmenting and recomposing them. In the words of art historian Jack Cowart, Lichtenstein’s virtuosic compositions were “a rich dialogue of forms—all intuitively modified and released from their nominal sources.”v In the early 1980s, which coincided with re-establishing a studio in New York City, Lichtenstein was also at the apex of a busy mural career. In the 1960s and 1970s, he had completed four murals; between 1983 and 1990, he created five. He also completed major commissions for public sculptures in Miami Beach, Columbus, Minneapolis, Paris, Barcelona and Singapore. Lichtenstein created three major series in the 1990s, each emblematic of his ongoing interest in solving pictorial problems. The Interiors, mural-sized canvases inspired by a miniscule advertisement in an Italian telephone...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Postcard, Lithograph, Offset

Previously Available Items
Keith Haring Radiant Baby Barking Dog drawing 1982 (Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi)
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Keith Haring Radiant Baby, Barking Dog drawing 1982 (Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi Gallery): Unique 1982 Keith Haring drawing featuring two of Haring’s most recognizable & highly collected figures. This work is presented on the interior cover of the artist’s seminal, limited edition 1982 Tony Shafrazi gallery catalog featuring a standout neon Keith Haring Three Eyed Smiling Face cover & lithographic inserts. A historic drawing executed during the artist’s breakout year. Signed, dedicated and dated 1982. Medium: Ink on softcover wire bound exhibition catalog; approximately 140 pages. 1st edition 1982. Dimensions: 9 x 9 inches (folded closed). Drawing: Well-preserved; very good overall vintage condition. 9x9 inches. Book: Light to moderate wear to front & back cover; minor signs of use; surface loss to interior 1st page; small tear/corner loss to bottom of pgs 47-48; tight binding; in otherwise good overall vintage condition. Signed and Inscribed, ‘K. Haring 82, To Shawn’. Catalog published by Tony Shafrazi Gallery New York, 1982 from a limited edition of 2000 (see image 6). Includes a forward by Tony Shafrazi, as well as text by Keith Haring, Jeffrey Deitch, et al, with photos by Tseng Kwong Chi. Related Auction history: Sotheby’s ‘Contemporary Art Paris’ October 2020; lots 501-504. Keith Haring was an American artist and social activist known for his illustrative depictions of figures and symbols. His white chalk drawings could often been found on the blank poster marquees in New York’s public spaces and subways. “I don't think art is propaganda,” he once stated. “It should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.” Born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, PA, he grew up in neighboring Kutztown, where he was inspired to draw from an early age by Walt Disney cartoons and his father who was an amateur cartoonist. After briefly studying commercial art in Pittsburgh, Haring came across a show of the works of Pierre Alechinksy and decided to pursue a career in fine art instead. He moved to New York in the late 1970s to attend the School of Visual Arts, and soon immersed himself in the city’s graffiti culture. By the mid-1980s, he had befriended fellow artists Andy Warhol, Kenny Scharf, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and collaborated with celebrities like the singer Grace Jones. Diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1988, Haring’s prodigious career was brief, and he died of AIDS-related complications on February 16, 1990 at the age of 31. Before his death, Haring established the Keith Haring Foundation, a non-profit committed to raising awareness of the illness through art programing and community outreach. Throughout his career, Haring made his art widely available through the location of his murals, as well as through the Pop Shop—Haring's own storefront which he used to sell his memorabilia.The artist’s mural Crack is Wack (1986), can still be seen today on a retaining wall along FDR Drive in Manhattan. Haring’s works can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Related Categories: Keith Haring radiant baby. Keith Haring Three Eyes...
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1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

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Ink, Paper

Untitled (Polaroid)
By Keith Haring
Located in New York, NY
Felt-tip pen and ink on wove paper. Drawn on Fun Gallery, New York letterhead paper. Signed and dated in ink, right margin recto.
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1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Felt Pen

Historic letter to an aspiring young artist, written and signed by hand (unique)
By Keith Haring
Located in New York, NY
KEITH HARING Letter to an aspiring young artist, ca. 1987 Original handwritten, hand signed letter to a young artist, done in ink on Keith Haring's original letterhead paper Unique S...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink

RADIANT BABY
By Keith Haring
Located in Tel Aviv - Jaffa, IL
Original drawing by Keith Haring with black marker on a page of the book Art in transit, published in 1984 (first edition) Photographies by Tseng Kwong Chi Harmony Books New York The drawing is hand signed, dated and dedicated by the artist The subject of the drawing is the iconic Radiant Baby...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Felt Pen

RADIANT BABY
H 11.82 in W 7.88 in
No title
By Keith Haring
Located in Tel Aviv - Jaffa, IL
Felt pen on orange thick paper Signed, dedicated and dated Unique piece Mint condition Provenance : Cataloged auction sale Matsart Jerusalem Artist's Biography : Keith Haring r...
Category

1980s Contemporary Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Felt Pen

No title
No title
H 4.34 in W 4.34 in
Unique drawing on original Tony Shafrazi gallery poster
By Keith Haring
Located in New York, NY
KEITH HARING Original Radiant Baby Drawing, 1988 Unique Drawing in black marker done on Tony Shafrazi exhibition poster 34 × 25 inches Hand-signed by art...
Category

1980s Street Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Permanent Marker, Offset

Untitled "Art Attacks on AIDS"
By Keith Haring
Located in Greenwich, CT
Keith Haring Untitled "Art Attacks on AIDS" Subway Drawing / Chalk on Paper Museum Acid Free Silk Backing, Charcoal Seamless Handmade Wood Frame and Museum Non Glare Plexiglass. Since the very beginning of his career, Keith Haring was always passionate about creating art that was easily accessible to everyone and his New York City subway drawings, murals and street art meant that a much larger and more diverse audience could experience his work, outside of the more insular space of an art gallery. As he traveled the New York City Subway System Keith noticed black matte paper had been used to cover expired adds. He purchased white chalk which he kept in his pocket, and started drawing, this quickly became a daily obsession of his. As the train would enter a station he would look for the black spaces on the subway station walls, exit the train, quickly draw without any planning or any preparation then leave on the next train. As noted by Dr. Amy Raffel: ""His incessant repetition, Haring’s subway drawings allowed him to perfect his highly recognizable reduced linear vocabulary, and to create an inventory of images. Simplification was practical: he needed to complete his drawings as fast as possible to avoid being arrested. He created characters, such as the barking dog and the radiating baby, which he drew on flat planes with no spatial depth, often with only a horizon line or a staircase to suggest space. Drawn close to the surface like cartoons, his images had immediacy and impact, and could carry multiple meanings through various combinations."" Keith is believed to have completed roughly 5,000 chalk subway...
Category

1980s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Chalk, Archival Paper

Self-Portrait (Penis), Original Pencil drawing by Keith Haring
By Keith Haring
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Keith Haring Title: Self Portrait (Penis) Year: 1978 Medium: Pencil Drawing on Graph Paper, signed l.r. Paper Size: 8.5 x 11 inches; 21.59 x 27.94 cm Frame: 17 x 20 inches; ...
Category

1970s Pop Art Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Keith Haring drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Keith Haring drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Keith Haring in ink, paper, pen and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Pop Art style. Not every interior allows for large Keith Haring drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 8 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Ronnie Cutrone, Jules Engel, and Charles Pachter. Keith Haring drawings and watercolor paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $6,000 and tops out at $685,000, while the average work can sell for $14,500.
Questions About Keith Haring Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring is originally from Kutztown, Pennsylvania, although he was born in the nearby city of Reading, Pennsylvania, on May 4, 1958. In 1978, Haring moved to New York City. He continued to live there until he died on February 16, 1990. Find a selection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring was a modern American artist and activist. He began as a street artist creating graffiti-inspired works throughout New York City’s subway system and would later produce public murals in cities all over the world. Haring’s paintings, prints and murals address the universal themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. In 1986, Haring opened a Pop Shop in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood to sell merchandise bearing his bold, cartoon-inspired designs. On 1stDibs, find a variety of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    The Keith Haring Foundation is a philanthropic organization founded by the artist Keith Haring in 1989. Its mission is to provide funding for nonprofit organizations who offer services and programs for children or conduct research or educational initiatives related to AIDS.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    For most of his life, Keith Haring lived in New York City and died there on February 16, 1990. He grew up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and briefly attended an art school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After he arrived in New York in 1978, he turned the city into a gallery space, creating murals in public areas like subway stations. On 1stDibs, shop a collection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring is important primarily because his innovative work, which began as street art on the New York City subway, became widely known during the 1980s and influenced other artists working at the time. Haring was also an activist — his late-career prints and murals addressed contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. Haring helped elevate graffiti art and was one of the first artists to begin placing his designs on merchandise sold to the general public through his Pop Shop in New York City. Shop a collection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring drew most of his inspiration from graffiti artists and got his start painting subway stations and other locations around New York City. In addition, artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Jean Dubuffet, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri influenced his work. On 1stDibs, shop a collection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertAugust 8, 2024
    Keith Haring was known for his work as an artist. He began experimenting with his bold, graphic lines and cartoon-inspired figures on the walls of New York City subway stations in the early 1980s. He called these underground places his “laboratory” to develop a radical new aesthetic based on the ideology of creating truly democratic public art. Haring used paintings, prints and murals to address the universal themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. These works derive much of their impact from the powerful contrast between these serious subjects and the joyful, vibrant pictographic language he used to express them, full of dancing figures, babies, barking dogs, hearts and rhythmic lines, as well as references to pop culture. To make his art even more accessible, in 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop in Soho. In a foreshadowing of today’s intermingling of art and fashion, the shop sold merchandise and novelty items featuring his imagery. Find a collection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertFebruary 1, 2024
    Some facts about Keith Haring include that he began his career by creating street art in New York subway stations, which he referred to as his "laboratory." In 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood and began selling merchandise and novelty items featuring imagery by himself and contemporaries like Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Also, the world's largest jigsaw puzzle features Haring's artwork and consists of 32,000 pieces. After his death, his estate formed the Keith Haring Foundation to raise awareness about AIDS and fund research into the autoimmune disease. On 1stDibs, explore a wide range of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania. After growing up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and briefly attending art school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he moved to New York City, where he made a name for himself creating street art on the subway system. Haring gained an even larger audience in the years that followed, producing public murals that were often commissioned and making art that was frequently informed by political and cultural issues. On 1stDibs, find a selection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    To pronounce Keith Haring, say "Keeth HEH-ring." Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. You'll find a range of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Keith Haring is famous for producing bold cartoon-style art. You may see his work printed on everything from home décor to coffee mugs to fashion accessories. He gained notoriety for street art in his early days as an artist. Later, Haring’s revered paintings, prints and murals would address the universal themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. On 1stDibs, find a collection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    In his early days as an artist, Keith Haring worked primarily in New York City, where he created murals on walls and unused advertising boards along Manhattan’s subway system. Once his work gained popularity, he traveled to produce work in Australia, Europe and elsewhere. You'll find a collection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 25, 2024
    Keith Haring's art was about a variety of subjects. His paintings, prints and murals addressed themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues, like drug use and the AIDS epidemic. His work derives much of its impact from the powerful contrast between these serious subjects and the joyful, vibrant pictographic language he used to express them. Haring’s enduring work is full of dancing figures, babies, barking dogs, hearts and rhythmic lines, as well as references to pop culture. On 1stDibs, explore a collection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 16, 2024
    Keith Haring used a variety of materials. Over the course of his career, he produced works in markers, chalk, felt-tip pens, ink and acrylic paints. For his murals, he often preferred spray paint. Interestingly, the artist rarely made sketches for even his largest works, preferring to improvise during the creation process. Find a wide range of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 15, 2024
    You can see Keith Haring art displayed in numerous museums and in some public spaces. New York City is home to many pieces, including at the Carmine Street Pool; in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center; in Woodhull Hospital; at East 128th Street and the Harlem River Drive and in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art. To discover more locations in the U.S. and around the world, visit the official website of the Keith Haring Foundation. Shop a selection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Keith Haring painted in New York City subways because he wanted his artwork to be accessible to the general public. He also produced works in other locations throughout the city. You can find a range of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    What Keith Haring's figures mean depends on the lines near them. Curves show that a figure is in motion, while short straight lines represent sound. The figures themselves are usually meant to signify various roles in society. On 1stDibs, shop a selection of Keith Haring art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    The type of art that Keith Haring primarily did was drawing. He is most often associated with the Pop art movement. Initially, Haring was inspired by graffiti artists and began experimenting with his bold, graphic lines and cartoon-inspired figures on the walls of New York City subway stations in the early 1980s. After gaining recognition for his innovative street art, Haring was commissioned to create murals in cities all over the world. Shop a range of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertJune 6, 2024
    The style of Keith Haring's art is Pop art. When creating his paintings and murals, he drew inspiration from cartoons and used this playful approach to provide commentary on the issues of his time, such as the crack and AIDS epidemics, and the universal themes of death, love and sex. Since he got his start experimenting with his bold, graphic lines and figures on the walls of New York City subway stations, many people have also referred to him as a street artist. Shop a range of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    You can see Keith Haring art at many museums in North America, Europe and Asia. In New York City, some of his pieces hang in the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the City of New York. Some of his murals remain in the city, as well. A map of all of the existing murals is available on the Keith Haring Foundation's website. Shop a collection of Keith Haring art on 1stDibs.

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