Keith Haring
1958–1990
Keith Haring’s imagery is familiar worldwide for its trademark black lines, bright colors, and iconography of radiating babies, dancing men, and barking dogs. Haring achieved this recognition and executed his large body of work during the period of twelve years from 1978, when he moved to New York, until his death from AIDS-related causes in 1990. He was a vital part of the burgeoning 1980s New York art scene, from its beginnings in the East Village, amid other young artists such as Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. New York served not just as inspiration but as the site for much of his art, and it was there that he developed his spontaneous, free-flowing style of graffiti for decorating the surfaces of streets and subways.
In 1981, as Haring’s career was gathering momentum, he discovered the vinyl tarps that the city’s electrical company used to cover its equipment on the street. Enchanted with this new support, he found a distributor from which to reliably and legally obtain them. Without having to deal with the pressure of being caught by the police, Haring now was able to more carefully arrange his images, as evidenced in this indigo tarp in which three figures— two dancing, one with his eyes covered— are interwoven with the hieroglyphic-like, allover composition. As the decade progressed, Haring became increasingly aware of his role in society and his ability to communicate with a broad public. He strove to create art that was easily accessible and yet addressed the social concerns of his times, including AIDS, racism, and illiteracy.
Introduction
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness. In addition to solo gallery exhibitions, he participated in renowned national and international group shows such as documenta in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial in New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Venice Biennale. The Whitney Museum held a retrospective of his art in 1997.
Haring's popularity grew from his spontaneous drawings in New York City subways: chalk outlines of figures, dogs, and other stylized images on blank black advertising spaces. After gaining public recognition, he created colorful larger scale murals, many commissioned. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, many of them created voluntarily for hospitals, day care centers and schools. In 1986, he opened the Pop Shop as an extension of his work. His later work often conveyed political and societal themes, anti-crack, anti-apartheid, safe sex, homosexuality and AIDS, through his own iconography.
Haring died of AIDS-related complications on February 16, 1990. In 2014, he was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco, a walk of fame noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields". In 2019, he was one of the inaugural 50 American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.
Wikidata identifier
Q485635
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 29, 2025.
Introduction
Perhaps more than any other artist associated with the corporate art boom of the 1980s, Haring has become one of the most popular. His simple, cartoon images and flat color, executed in a graffiti-like style appeared as sculptures, decorative accesories, and on the running "Spectacolor Billboard" in Times Square, New York (1982). Haring died of AIDS in 1990.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, cartoonist, graffiti artist, muralist, painter, photographer, sculptor
ULAN identifier
500024253
Names
Keith Haring, Ḳit Haring, קית הרינג
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 29, 2025.
