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Introduction

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Untitled is a portfolio of six lithographs created in 1982, a pivotal year in the career of Keith Haring. The series coincides with his inaugural exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York—an event that propelled the artist from the subway to the international stage almost overnight. Executed entirely in black and white, the portfolio brings together crucifixions, barking dogs, flying saucers, and television screens, merging religious symbolism with a science-fiction and childlike visual sensibility. The result is a distilled version of Haring’s graphic alphabet, already fully formed and instantly recognizable.

The dominant narrative running through the suite is that of the Crucifixion, though its treatment is resolutely non-traditional. Raised in a Christian household, Haring was briefly affiliated in his youth with the Jesus Movement, an experience that would leave a lasting imprint on his iconography. Reflecting on this period, he later remarked: “I was considered a freak—a Jesus freak. I tried to convince others to be born again, but it just annoyed people.” His subsequent rejection of organized religion, coupled with his arrival in New York in the early 1980s, marked a decisive shift. Drawing in chalk on unused subway advertising panels, Haring adopted a radically public, spontaneous, and socially charged mode of expression. A subway drawing from the same year as Untitled notably depicts a crucified figure contained within a television screen, collapsing religious imagery into the language of mass media.

In the Untitled portfolio, crucifixion is no longer a biblical event but a contemporary condition. Haring’s archetypal figures—genderless, faceless, and rendered in a deliberately primitive manner—stand in for modern victims of violence, control, and systemic oppression. In Plates II and VI, open-mouthed dogs encircle the crucified body, their aggressive postures evoking forces of domination and threat. The dog, one of Haring’s most potent symbols, oscillates between authority and instinct, discipline and rebellion.

This ambiguity is pushed further in Plate IV, where a flying saucer beams directly onto an anthropomorphic dog. Jagged lines radiate outward, charging the scene with a palpable sense of impact and energy. Though cartoonish on the surface—and firmly rooted in the UFO imagery popular in the 1980s—the motif carries deeper implications. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Haring explained: “The dog is being zapped by a flying saucer. Suddenly it made sense to draw on the street, because I had something to say… They were representative of human and animal. In different combinations they were about the difference between human power and the power of animal instinct.”

Lithography proves an ideal medium for this vision. It preserves the immediacy and urgency of Haring’s line while enabling repetition, circulation, and accessibility—principles central to his practice. Untitled stands not only as a coherent visual narrative, but as a concise manifesto: religion reframed, mass media exposed, power structures flattened, and meaning delivered through symbols meant for everyone, everywhere.

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Untitled 1-6, 1982

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Untitled 1-6

The complete set of six lithographs
Medium: Lithograph on Arches 88 paper
Year: 1982
Image: 22 5/8 x 33 3/8 inches (57.5 x 84.8 cm)
Sheet: 24×36 inches (61×91 cm)
Edition: 40
Artist’s Proofs: 8
Publisher: Barbara Gladstone Editions, New-York
Literature: Littmann pp. 18-21

Signed, dated and numbered in red crayon

 

1. Untitled 1 (Littmann p.19)

2. Untitled 2 (Littmann p.19)

3. Untitled 3 (Littmann p. 20)

4. Untitled 4 (Littmann p. 20)

5. Untitled 5 (Littmann p. 21)

6. Untitled 6 (Littmann p. 21)

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Untitled 1

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Christie’s New-York: 19 April 2017
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 21,250

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled 1-6: one plate, 1982
Lithograph on Arches paper
Signed and dated in red pencil, numbered 9/40

 

 

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Untitled 2

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Christie’s online: 27 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 12,000 – 18,000
GBP 21,420 / USD 27,632

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled 2 (Littmann p.19), 1982
Lithograph in colors on wove paper
Signed and dated ‘3.82’ in red crayon
Numbered ‘5-40’ (there were also eight artist’s proofs)

Phillips New-York: 15 February 2023
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 35,280

Christie’s New-York: 19 April 2017
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 12,500

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled 1-6: one plate, 1982
Lithograph, on Arches paper
Signed and dated in red pencil, numbered 25/40

 

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Untitled 3

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Grisebach: 29 November 2024
Estimated: EUR 15,000 – 20,000
EUR 19,050 / USD 20,115

KEITH HARING (Kutztown, Pennsylvania 1958 – 1990 New York)
Untitled #3 (Littmann p. 18/20), 1982
Lithograph on paper
Signed, dated and inscribed
One of 40 numbered prints
Sheet 3 (of 6) of the series

Sotheby’s London: 15 March 2023
Estimated: GBP 15,000 – 20,000
GBP 21,590

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled 3 (L. p. 20), from Untitled 1-5, 1982
Lithograph on Arches 88 paper
Signed in red crayon, dated, numbered 8/40
[It is Untitled 3 and not Untitled 2 as indicated by Sotheby’s]

Artnet Auctions: 13 July 2022
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 35,000

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled 3 (from Untitled 1-6), 1982
Lithograph on Arches paper
Signed, dated and numbered 15/40 in red crayon
[It is Untitled 3 and not Untitled 2 as indicated by Artnet]

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2020
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 30,000

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled 2, from Untitled 1-6, 1982
Lithograph on Arches 88 paper
Signed and dated ‘3.82’ in red crayon, numbered ‘8-40’

 

 

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Untitled 4

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Phillips New-York: 21 October 2021
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 42,840

Swann Galleries: 21 November 2019
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 22,500

KEITH HARING
Untitled, 1982
Lithograph on Arches
Signed, dated and numbered ‘6-40’ in red crayon, lower right margin

Christie’s New-York: 19 April 2017
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 18,750

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled: one plate, 1982
Lithograph, on wove paper
Signed and dated in red pencil, numbered 17/40

 

 

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Untitled 5

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Christie’s New-York: 19 April 20217
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 18,750

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled 1-6: one plate, 1982
Lithograph on Arches paper
Signed and dated in red pencil, numbered 25/40