Jean Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988)
He began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into a Neo-expressionist painter during the 1980s. His father, Gerard Basquiat, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother, Matilde Basquiat, was of Puerto Rican descent, born in Brooklyn, New York. His teachers noticed his artistic abilities, and his mother encouraged her son's artistic talent. In 1976, Basquiat began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, under the pseudonym SAMO.
Later "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine, which brought Basquiat to the attention of the art world. Basquiat often incorporated words into his paintings. His paintings are typically covered with text and codes of all kinds: words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, diagrams. Basquiat with his unique powerful brand of graffiti art and Neo-expressionist was showed regularly alongside other Neo-expressionist artists including Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente. He was represented in Los Angeles by the Larry Gagosian gallery. He briefly dated then-aspiring performer, Madonna, in late 1982. Basquiat also worked briefly with David Bowie. Warhol befriended Basquiat, with whom he later collaborated
By 1986, Basquiat had appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist" His works now command prices in the millions at Christie's, Ulrich sold a 1982 Basquiat piece, Untitled (Boxer), for US$13,522,500 and a record price for a Basquiat painting was made on May 15, 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$14.6 million. He is a major Artist with International museum acclaim & gallery shows worldwide. His works appear in the prominent exhibitions of many major museums