Jean Michel Basquiat began his career as a teenage
graffiti artist, spray-painting phrases on walls in the streets of New York City. At the age of twenty, he turned to drawings, paintings, and
sculpture, incorporating a raw, graffiti-like style into his work and often using bright colors. Basquiat painted
Hollywood Africans after his second trip to Los Angeles in the winter of 1982. The words and images in this artwork refer to the limited,
stereotyped roles that African American actors were allowed to play in the movies during the 1940s, such as gangsters (
GANGSTERISM) and farm laborers (
SUGAR CANE,
TOBACCO). The three
portraits show Basquiat (at right) with the rap musician and artist Rammellzee and the painter Toxic, who had traveled with him from New York.
Basquiat also included personal signs and information in this painting. For example, 12,22,60 (December 22, 1960) are the numbers of the artist’s birth date; the crown on the bottom left is his
tag or signature. Basquiat often crossed out words or phrases in his works. The technique, he explained, was actually meant to get your attention: "I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.”
