Untitled (Red Warrior), 1982
Acrylic and oil stick on linen
77×78 inches (195.6 x 198 cm)
Signed and dated 82 on the reverse

Provenance
Larry Gagosian, Los Angeles
Private Collection, USA
Fred Hoffman Gallery, New York
Vrej Baghoomian, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 9 October 2021
HKD 162,926,000 / USD 20,929,800

Source: Sotheby’s
Jean-Michel Basquiat 尚・米榭・巴斯基亞 | Untitled (Red Warrior) 無題（紅戰士） | Contemporary Art Evening Sale | | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

 

Created in the pivotal year of 1982, considered Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “annus mirabilis”, Untitled (Red Warrior) is an audacious canvas work from the most desirable period of the artist’s short, intensely prolific career. Incorporating signature elements from his hybridized visual lexicon, this work is a triumphant display of the human form and Basquiat’s bold handling of line and color. Arm raised in victory, or poised to attack, the heroic protagonist of Untitled (Red Warrior) exemplifies Basquiat’s trademark motif of warrior, emerging from the storm of ravenous brushstrokes that threatens to engulf the figure’s crimson physique. With a limited number of only 200 major canvas works deriving from this crucial year, examples of which are seldom offered at auction, Untitled (Red Warrior) is an extraordinary vision of Basquiat’s artistic prowess; the bold, gestural lines and intense color indicative of the artist at his peak. Fresh to market with distinguished provenance, this work is one of the few warrior paintings left in private hands. This work was exhibited in the 1989 posthumous show, Jean-Michel Basquiat, at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in New York—the only work to be featured on the exhibition’s invitation— and was displayed in the acclaimed Picasso, Bacon & Basquiat exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York (8 May – 30 July 2004), consolidating Untitled (Red Warrior)’s importance in the canon of art history.

Exhibition Poster for New York, Vrej Baghoomian Gallery

 

Bursting onto the art scene with his participation in the landmark exhibition, New York/New Wave, in February 1981 at MoMA P.S.1 in New York, Basquiat quickly attracted the attention of critics and collectors alike. Established art dealers including Emilio Mazzoli, Annina Nosei and Bruno Bischofberger, soon took notice of the young artist, prompting his first solo exhibition in Galleria d’Arte Emilio Mazzoli in Modena, Italy in May 1981. In March 1982, Nosei became his primary dealer, leading to his first solo show in the United States at the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (6 March – 1 April), a phenomenal success which effectively launched his career. Equipped for the first time with a studio space and all the materials he needed, Basquiat began to produce his forceful, spirited large-scale canvases for which he became known. After deciding to leave the Annina Nosei Gallery that same year, Bruno Bischofberger became his exclusive dealer, proposing Mary Boone as his partner gallery, who represented the artist until 1983. In 1982, the artist was also invited to participate in the renowned Documenta 7 exhibition in Kassel, Germany, the youngest of the 176 participating artists, which included the likes of Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. Overall, 1982 was a year in which Basquiat had hit his stride, imbued with a heightened confidence from institutional acknowledgment and the accolades of collectors and peers alike, and armed with blue-chip gallery representation.

 

Untitled (Red Warrior) presents Basquiat’s favored motif of the isolated hero, who he often depicted with one arm raised, rudimental fingers splayed out wide or brandishing a variety of objects including arrows, swords, and orb-like forms. In 1982, Basquiat’s various heroic figures took the form of mysterious, spiritual prophets or fearless warriors, strikingly self-assured in the way they stand directly facing the viewer. There is a distinct connection in his oeuvre between martyrdom, heroism and the artist, and here, the warrior can be interpreted as a self-portrait, a triumphal symbol of the Black artist conquering the invisible oppressor within the image, succeeding in an art world that was predominantly white. Basquiat was an inveterate consumer of knowledge, incorporating a plethora of influences and references into his richly symbolic work. In Untitled (Red Warrior), continuous white lines delineate the internal structure of the warrior, skeletonizing the otherwise fiery, blood-red figure and reflecting the artist’s longstanding interest in the seminal reference book of human anatomy, Gray’s Anatomy. Not only a nod to Gray’s Anatomy and the anatomical drawings of Italian masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Untitled (Red Warrior) also demonstrates Basquiat’s acute interest in African art and tribal sculptures, and his desire to engage with the legacy of Western art history and the knights and kings of the Italian Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of the Human Figure (after Vitruvius), c. 1492
Galleria Dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy

 

Additionally, the protagonist’s red, cone-tipped helmet is similar in its shape to the headgear donned by these spiritual sculptures. Further, the mask-like face, almond eyes and elongated nose reveal the influence of Picasso and Cubism on Basquiat’s forms, particularly the way in which Picasso incorporates elements of African art into his own work, as seen in the Spanish master’s famous, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) part of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection in New York. Indeed, Basquiat was a known collector of West African sculptures and masks, as well as an avid frequenter of New York’s many cultural institutions. Son of a Puerto Rican-American mother and Haitian-American father, the Brooklynite child of the African Diaspora, Basquiat’s immersion in his rich cultural environment is manifested in the captivating visual feast that the artist conceives, transporting the viewer through time and space with works such as Untitled (Red Warrior). A born draughtsman and master of color, Basquiat’s red warrior absorbs the viewer’s gaze into the heart of the canvas, its blazing pigment combusting into scribbled flames of yellow and red at the site of the figure’s left hand. A vivid response to the coolness of conceptual and minimalist art and the intellectualism of the 1970s, the heat of Untitled (Red Warrior) palpably radiates from the canvas, rapid brushstrokes of pink, grey and black adding a powerful dynamism to the work.

 

Making its auction debut, Untitled (Red Warrior) is an authoritative canvas painting from 1982 to be offered in Asia. With very few remaining warrior paintings left in private hands—Basquiat’s most coveted, iconic motif from his significant oeuvre—this painting is an extremely rare, museum-quality masterwork to come to market, the last remaining work from the patron’s private collection.