Jean-Michel Basquiat rose to fame while his white contemporaries of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol reigned the neo-expressionist movement of the 1970s and 80s. He carved his way into a predominantly white art sphere that had dominated the art circuit of that era to become one of the most commercially successful artists of all time.
Basquiat’s mixed heritage of Haitian-American and Puerto Rican seep into each of his art pieces, as he commentates on the perceived notions of black identity in the public frame. His work carries with it a myriad of African American experiences and inevitably transformed the way the art world interpreted African American art as a whole. Basquiat challenged western history by depicting saints and kings as black. Not only were they black, but they were also majestic, strong, and poetic, proving that African Americans were not the violent, overtly criminal caricatures white suburbia saw them as.
His paintings read like blues songs—just as colorful, and equally important to black culture. Lively and eccentric, one gets lost in the childish, yet sophisticated, doodles that take up the canvas.