Keith Haring Biography
Pennsylvania, 1958- New York, 1990
American artist, widely regarded as one of the most recognized names in Graffiti and Pop art.
Trained at the Pittsburgh Center of Arts and the School of Visual Arts, New York, he was a friend of Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Soon after completing school, Haring began experimenting with Graffiti art on the streets of New York.
'Graffiti were the most beautiful things I ever saw,' commented Keith. 'The kids who were doing it were very young and from the streets, but they had this incredible mastery of drawing which totally blew me away. I mean, just the technique of drawing with spray paint is amazing, because it's incredibly difficult to do. And the fluidity of line, and the scale, and always the hard- edged black line that tied the drawings together! It was the line I had been obsessed with since childhood!'
Haring's first show was held in October 1982 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in SoHo. The exhibition drew some 4,000 people and showed Haring as prolific and electric, with works on the street styles of breakdancing, rap music and graffiti to the sexual freedom of the period and the greater interchange between races.
His style came to be associated with the artistic traditions of Africa, Asia, Australia, Oceania, and the Americas, with its powerful imagery of social consciousness. Despite his youth and untimely death from AIDS at the age of 31, Haring was invited to show his work - from 1980 to 1985 - at the Bordeaux Contemporary Art Museum in France and at the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2006
Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby - - Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania, Editions on Paper - - University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Keith Haring: Art & Commerce - - Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, United States
Keith Haring: Paintings, Sculpture, Objects and Drawings - - Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, New York, United States
Against All Odds - - Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida, United States
2005
Keith Haring - - Alpen-Adria Galerie, Klagenfurt, Austria
Keith Haring Sculptures (View Selected Works) - - Deitch Projects, New York, NY, USA
Keith Haring (View Selected Works) - - Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, England
Galleria Salvatore Ala, Milan, Italy
Keith Haring: Urban Memory - - Fundacion ICO, Madrid, Spain
Five Keith Haring Sculptures - - Somerset House, London, England
Three Keith Haring Sculptures - - Lever House, New York, New York,
The Keith Haring Show - - La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
Keith Haring Sculptures - - Forum Grimaldi, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Editions on Paper - - Fundacion Canal, Madrid, Spain
Keith Haring: Coloring Book Drawings - - Briggs-Robinson Gallery, New York, New York, United States
L'Art a la Plage #4: Keith Haring - - Galerie Enrico Navarra in cooperation with Galerie Jerome de Noirmont, St Tropez, France
2004
Keith Haring - - Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - - Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal - - Alte Rathaus, Prien am Chiemsee, Germany
The Characters of Keith Haring - - Children's Museum of the Arts, New York, NY, USA
Photos from the Archives: the Artist at Work - - Pop Shop, New York, NY, USA
Keith Haring: New Wave Aztec - - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Alona Kagan Gallery, New York, New York,
2003
Keith Haring: Short Message. Posters 1982-1990 - - Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany - - Kunstmuseum, Heidenheim, Germany - - Kunsthaus, Kaufbeuren, Germany
Pop Figuration - - Deitch Projects, New York, NY, USA
Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Four Sculptures - - American Academy, Rome, Italy
Two Sculptures - - Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy,
Haring Drawings - - Culturgest, Porto, Portugal
Kagan-Martos Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Keith Haring - - Centro Cutural Banco do Brasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil - - CCBB, Brasilia, Brazil
2002
Arario Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell (View Selected Works) - - Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland
Keith Haring: Tarps - - Van de Weghe Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Sex Show (View Selected Works) - - Galerie Jerome de Noirmont, Paris, France
Keith Haring: Short Message. Posters 1982-1990 - - Versicherungskammer Bayern, Munich, Germany
2001
Keith Haring Sculptures - - Rome, Italy
The 10 Commandments (View Selected Works) - - Wapping Power Station, London, England
Castello Ursino, Catania, Sicily, Italy
Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell - - Museum fur Neue Kunst/ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, Georgetown, Grand Cayman
Paradise Garage - - Deitch Projects, New York City, NY, USA
2000
Keith Haring: the SVA Years - - School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA
Keith Haring - - Isetan Museum, Tokyo, Japan - - Sapporo City Museum of Modern Art, Hokkaido, Japan - - Niitsu City Museum, Niigata, Japan - - Amos Anderson Museum, Helsinki, Finland
Keith Haring: Sculptures on the Kurfurstendamm - - Berlin Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany
Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, Italy
Keith Haring Sculptures - - Rome, Italy
1999
Keith Haring - - Eki Museum, Kyoto, Japan - - Kurashiki City Museum, Kurashiki, Japan - - Iwaki City Museum, Iwaki, Japan - - Isetan Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Keith Haring Sculptures - - Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, California, USA - - Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL, USA
Keith Haring: A Retrospective - - City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand Galerie Jerome de Noirmont, Paris, France
Keith Haring - - Musee Maillol, Paris, France
Katonah Art Museum, Katonah, NY, USA
Peter Gwyther Gallery, London, England
Casino Knokke, Knokke, Belgium
Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AR, USA
Deitch Projects, New York, NY, USA
Keith Haring in Pisa - - Palazzo Lanfranchi, Pisa, Italy
SELECTED MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Broad Family Foundation, Los Angeles, California
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California
The Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida
The Bass Museum of Art, Miami, Florida
Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York City
Emily Fisher Landau Foundation, New York City
Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, New York City
Taft Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Rooseum, Malmo, Sweden
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Musee d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Nice, France
Musee de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
CAPC Musee de l'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Geneva, Switzerland
Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
Marx Collection, Berlin, Germany
ZKM/Museum fur Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe, Germany
Neues Museum Weimar, Germany
Albertina Collection, Vienna, Austria
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria
Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Austria
Ludwig Collection, Budapest, Hungary
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jerusalem, Israel
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan
The Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan
Benesse House, Naoshima, Japan
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
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