By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi gallery c.1984:
Original 1980s Keith Haring holiday card from Tony Shafrazi gallery. Interior reads “Season’s Greetings” in green ink. Front image: Keith Haring 'Untitled,' 1984.
Offset illustrated gallery announcement; 5.75 x 8.5 inches.
Very good overall vintage condition.
Unsigned from an edition of unknown; presumed rare.
Published by: Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, c. 1984.
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. Born in 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.
About Tony Shafrazi Gallery:
Iranian-born Tony Shafrazi began his formal career as an artist at 13 when his parents took him to England to study, eventually graduating from both the Hammersmith College of Art & Building, and the Royal College of Art. Coming to the United States in 1965, Tony Shafrazi set out to introduce himself to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and by 1968, was teaching art, design and media theory at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In an odd turn of events, Tony Shafrazi became the art adviser to the Shad of Iran and began to assemble a collection of 20th century art on his behalf. This extended his reach further into the art world, and in 1978 he opened the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. Displaying artwork by such artists as Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, and David LaChapelle, the Tony Shafrazi Gallery would be an incredible place to begin or further a career in the world of professional art.
Related Categories
Keith Haring dancer. Ballet. Keith Haring Figurative Drawings. Keith Haring Into 84 poster. Keith Haring and Tony Shafrazi. Haring Shafrazi.
Category
1980s Abstract Keith Haring Animal Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph