Untitled

Medium: Screen-print in colors on Rives BFK wove paper
Year: 1985
Sheet: 23 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches (60×80 cm)
Edition: 150
Artist’s Proofs: 20 AP (numbered in Roman numerals)
Publisher: Martin Lawrence Limited Editions, Inc., New-York
Printer: Durham Press, Durham
Literature: Littmann p. 50

Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil

Untitled (Littmann 50) might be one of the most structurally sophisticated and chromatically explosive prints from Keith Haring’s breakthrough mid-1980s period. Created in 1985, at the height of Keith Haring’s international recognition, Untitled (Littmann 50) exemplifies the artist’s ability to construct complex social allegories through radically simplified forms. The work explodes with saturated colors, electric orange, turquoise blue, acid yellow, emerald green, and pink, all contained within Haring’s thick, assertive black contour.

The composition is architectonic. At the center stands a large orange figure marked with a bold “X” on the torso, a sign that, in Haring’s vocabulary, frequently signifies censorship, negation, or moral judgment. Directly below, a turquoise figure with a cross inscribed within a circular form occupies the middle register. This central body spreads its arms horizontally, creating a cruciform structure that stabilizes the entire composition. Flanking this figure are two turquoise bodies also marked with “X” symbols, bent inward, seemingly supporting or interacting with the central axis. Smaller green and pink figures hover at the periphery, suspended in dynamic poses. At the base, a green head-like form marked with a cross anchors the scene, almost as a foundation stone. The image reads like a social machine: interlocking bodies forming a symbolic ecosystem of control, faith, tension, and dependency.

Several recurring Haring symbols dominate the print: (1) The X mark: often associated with prohibition, error, or condemnation; (2) The Cross: which may reference medicine, religion, addition, healing, or burden; (3) Radiating lines: indicating activation, energy, speech, or spiritual force. In 1985, these motifs cannot be separated from the AIDS crisis, censorship debates, and public health anxieties that shaped Haring’s world. The cross inside the torso evokes medical symbolism, while the X-marked figures suggest stigmatization. The composition suggests a hierarchy: the large orange figure looms above, while the lower figures appear to sustain or resist it. Is this authority pressing downward? Or is the structure collapsing under symbolic weight? Haring never provides a single reading. He stages systems (social, religious, sexual) and reduces them to visual equations.

Color here is confrontational: (1) Orange dominates the upper register, radiating outward like a warning flare; (2) Turquoise stabilizes the middle, cooler but marked; (3) Yellow fills the ground, producing visual vibration; (4) Pink and green punctuate the margins. The effect is almost liturgical: like stained glass translated into urban signage. Unlike his black-and-red works from the same year, this print is less about alarm and more about systemic entanglement. It feels constructed rather than explosive.

Auction Results

KEITH HARING
Untitled, 1985
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed, editioned E.A. VII/XX, and dated in pencil along right edge
An Artist’s Proof aside from the edition of 150

Bonhams Brussels: 26 June 2023
Estimated: EUR 25,000 – 30,000
EUR 48,640 / USD 53,070

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled (L. p. 50), 1985
Screen-print in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated, numbered 54/150

Sotheby’s London: 15 March 2023
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 50,800 / USD 61,125

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled (L. p. 50), 1985
Screen-print in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated, numbered 32/150

XXXXXXXXXX

Artcurial Paris: 29 November 2022
Estimated: EUR 25,000 – 30,000
EUR 47,232 / USD 48,850

KEITH HARING
Untitled, 1985
Screen-print in colors
Signed, dated and numbered 73/150

Sotheby’s London: 22 September 2022
Estimated: GBP 15,000 – 20,000
GBP 81,900 / USD 94,055
AUCTION RECORD FOR UNTITLED (LITTMANN 50)

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled (Littmann p. 50), 1985
Screen-print in colors
Signed in pencil, dated, numbered 3/150

XXXXXXXXXX

Koller Zurich: 30 June 2018
Estimated: CHF 18,000 – 24,000
CHF 32,900 / USD 33,225

KEITH HARING
Untitled, 1985
Color screenprint
Edition: 121/150
Signed and dated in pencil in the lower right margin: K. Haring 85

XXXXXXXXXX

Phillips New-York: 17 October 2017
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 31,250

Christie’s London: 19 September 2017
Estimated: GBP 12,000 – 18,000
GBP 17,500 / USD 23,655

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled, 1985
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 113/150

Sotheby’s New-York: 28 April 2017
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 27,500 

KEITH HARING
Untitled (L. p. 50), 1985
Screenprint in colors on Rives BFK paper
Signed in pencil, dated and inscribed ‘EA XVIII/XX’
An artist’s proof aside from the numbered edition of 150