When asked to describe his art, Jean-Michel Basquiat responded with customary aplomb: “royalty, heroism, and the streets.” A high school dropout, Basquiat found his true calling hanging out in the streets and inserting himself in the bustling urban milieu, ultimately becoming an influential figure in New York City’s Downtown, especially the East Village club scene. He was a regular among a group of filmmakers, artists, and musicians who made the Mudd Club, Club 57, and CBGB their stomping ground. Basquiat achieved his breakthrough in the early 1980s, developing a unique vocabulary characterized by repetitive images, human heads with open mouths as if in speech, a variety of marks, and xeroxed collage. In his paintings, the patches of intense color, created with acrylic, oil stick, and graphite, keyed into the excitement of New York’s subculture.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al Diaz, writing enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of Manhattan’s Lower East Side during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. At 22, he was one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his artwork in 1992.

Basquiat’s art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique. He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism. His visual poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle. Since his death at the age of 27 in 1988, Basquiat’s work has steadily increased in value. In 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased.

Jean-Michel Basquiat only created and released a very limited number of prints while he was alive. The first one is Anatomy, a portfolio of 18 signed prints that the artist made in 1982. Each print is signed in pencil and numbered on the verso, from an edition of 18 (total edition includes seven artist’s proofs), and printed on Arches 88 wove paper, printed by Jo Watanabe, New York, published by Annina Nosei Gallery, New York.

The second one, which the artist made in 1983, is Back of the Neck. With over 2.5 meters wide, it is a monumental work on paper with hand-colored finishing, featuring some of Basquiat’s most recognizable motifs – anatomy, the © symbol and a three-pointed crown. Those prints, created in Basquiat’s lifetime are very rare and command high prices at auction. The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat has started to publish editions in 2001 after the artist’s death. These posthumous works – based on Basquiat’s most celebrated paintings – are also desirable among collectors.

Anatomy, 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Anatomy is the artist’s first portfolio of prints and it distills many of the thematic qualities that define the artist’s early work. The series was created shortly after his inaugural solo exhibition, organized by the Annina Nosei Gallery in March of 1982. Nosei provided the artist with a studio in the basement of her gallery, where Anatomy was conceived.

Anatomy, 1982
The Complete Set of 18 screen-prints in black on Arches 88 wove paper
Sheets: 30 x 22 1/4 inches (76.4 x 56.5 cm)
Edition: 18 + 7 AP
Publisher: Annina Nosei Gallery, New-York
Printer: Jo Watanabe, New York

Femur – Vertical Median

Male Pelvis

Three Different Conditions of Biceps Muscle

Lateral View

Ligament of the Elbow

Head of the Mandible

RGT. Clavicle

Female Pelvis

Posterior View

The Scapula

Back of the Neck, 1983

Back of the Neck, 1983
Color screen-print with hand painting
Sheet: 50 1/8 x 101 7/8 inches (127.3 x 258.4 cm)
Edition: 24 + 3 AP

Executed in 1983 and part of a rare and monumental screen print edition by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Back of the Neck is replete with the artist’s hallmark iconography. One of only a handful of editioned screen-prints produced by the artist in his lifetime, Back of the Neck brims with the dazzling graphic force of Basquiat’s obsession with anatomical imagery. In harmony with each other, ardent bodily sketches, the three-pointed crown, the copyright symbol and Basquiat’s idiosyncratic handwriting are here emblazoned across a monumental picture plane.

Academic Study of the Male Figure, 1983

Academic Study of the Male Figure, 1983
Screen-print on Okiwara rice paper
Sheet: 40 x 31 1/4 inches (101.6 x 79.4 cm)
Edition: 20 (0nly 13 impressions were signed)
Publisher: New City Editions, Venice, California

Leg of a Dog, 1983

Leg of a Dog, from Da Vinci, 1983
Screen-print on Okiwara rice paper
Sheet: 40 1/8 x 31 1/4 inches (101.9 x 79.4 cm)
Edition: 20 of which 11 are signed
Publisher/Printer: New City Editions, Venice, California

Estate Prints

Estate Prints Portfolio I, 2001

Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate Prints Portfolio I, 1982/2001
21 color screen-print on Saunders 410 Hot Press watercolor paper
Sheet: 40 x40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Edition: 85 + 15 AP + 15 HC + 5 PP + 1 BAT
Publisher: DeSanctis Carr Fine Art, Los Angeles, 2001

This Portfolio was released in an edition of 85 prints, and 15 Artist’s Proofs. They are each signed and dated in pencil on the verso by Gerard Basquiat, the administrator of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as the stamps of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and DeSanctis Carr Fine Art.

1. Untitled (Head)

2. Untitled (Ernok)

3. Untitled (Rinso)

4. Untitled (Per Capita)

Estate Prints Portfolio II, 2005

Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate Prints Portfolio II, 1982-1984/2005
21 color screen-print on Saunders 410 Hot Press watercolor paper
Various sizes, the largest 61×48 inches (155×122 cm)
Edition: 85 + 15 AP + 15 Hors Commerce (HC), 5 Printer’s Proofs (PP), and 1 BAT
Publisher: David DeSanctis Contomporaru Art, Los Angeles, 2005

1. Cabeza

2. Rome Pays off

3. Jawbone of an Ass

4. Charles the First

Hollywood Africans, 2015

Hollywood Africans in front of the Chinese Theater with Footprints of Movie Stars, 1983/2015
23 color screen-print on 4-ply Museum Board
Sheet: 38 1/2 x 84 inches (155×122 cm)
Edition: 60 + XX AP
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York, 2015

The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced the release of a new Basquiat screen-print, Hollywood Africans in front of the Chinese Theater with Footprints of Movie Stars, published by Flatiron Editions on October 2005. The release marked the first edition authorized by the estate since 2005. It was available exclusively through Pace Prints. Orders were accepted on a first come, first serve basis.

Flexible, June 2016

Flexible, 1984/2016
24 color screen-print on 4-ply Museum Board
Sheet: 60×45 inches (153 x 115.7 cm)
Edition: 85 + 15 AP + 15 HC + 15 PP + 1 BAT
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York, 2016

Each screen-print is stamped and signed by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, the artist’s sisters and administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

On 2 June 2016, The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced the release of a new 24-color Basquiat screen-print titled Flexible (1984/2016), published by Flatiron Editions. The edition of 85 was available exclusively through Pace Prints. The edition was released at a price of USD 40,000, with tiered pricing.

Estate Prints Portfolio III, 2017

Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate Prints Portfolio III
Ascent; Olympic; Leeches; and Liberty, 1982-83/2017
The complete set of four screen-prints in colors on 300gm Somerset Satin paper
Sheet: 22×30 inches (56 x 76.4 cm)
Edition: 50 + 20 AP + 15 HC + 5 PP + 1 BAT
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York
Printer: Brand X Editions, New-York

All prints are numbered, signed and dated by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux (Administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat) in pencil with the Estate stamp on the reverse

1. Ascent

2. Liberty

3. Olympic

4. Leeches

Boxer Rebellion, 2018

In September 2018, The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced the release of a new 18-color Basquiat screen-print titled “Boxer Rebellion” (1982-83 / 2018), published by Flatiron Editions. The edition of 60 was available exclusively through Pace Prints at a release price of USD 35,000.

Boxer Rebellion
Year: 1982-1983/2018
Medium: 18 color screen-print on Rives BFK paper
Size: 60×45 inches (153 x 115.7 cm)
Edition: 60
Artist’s Proofs: 20
Other: 5 Printer’s Proofs (PP), and 1 BAT
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York, 2018

Estate Prints Portfolio IV, 2019

Wolf Sausage, King Brand, Dog Leg Study,
and Undiscovered Genius

Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate Prints Portfolio IV
Year: 1982-1983/2019
Medium: Screen-print in colors on Somerset Satin paper
Size: 22×30 inches (56 x 76.4 cm)
Edition: 50
Artist’s Proofs: 20
Other: 15 Hors Commerce (HC), 5 Printer’s Proofs (PP), and 1 BAT
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York, 2017

All prints are signed and dated by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux (Administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat) in pencil with the Estate stamp on the reverse.

The Super-Hero Portfolio, 2022

Riddle Me This, A Panel of Experts,
Piano Lesson, Flash in Naples

On 1 June 2022, The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced the release of a new portfolio of four hand-pulled screen-prints, Riddle Me This, A Panel of Experts, Piano Lesson, and Flash In Naples (1982-87/2022), published by Flatiron Editions. The portfolio was available exclusively through Pace Prints, online for a price of USD 200,000.

A portfolio of four hand pulled limited edition screenprints
Riddle Me This, A Panel of Experts, Piano Lesson, and Flash In Naples (1982-87/2022)
40 x 40 inches, each · Edition of 85

Stamped and signed by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, the artist’s sisters and administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Flash in Naples

The portfolio, in an edition of 85, is curated from works created between 1982-87, themed around the influence of comics in Basquiat’s work. The artist’s renditions of super hero images and pop culture icons appear throughout the works, including a bat logo, two characters fist-fighting, and a super hero-like figure accompanied by the word “KRAK” (in classic comic book onomatopoeic style). Such images and themes are repeated throughout his œuvre.

A Panel of Experts

Riddle Me This

As a young child Basquiat had aspired to be a cartoonist and incorporated cartoon-like figures in some of his early drawings. The mature works in this portfolio are prime examples of this influence, also containing several archetypal Basquiat stylistic concepts: the organization of seemingly disparate ideas, the sequencing of images, concepts and texts, deep interest in art and popular culture, and the creation of slogans, repeated and crossed out text and enigmatic references to strength and power. The posthumous release is stamped and signed by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, the artist’s sisters and administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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