From My Archives: Jean -Michel Basquiat. Rise to Fame, Keith Haring , Madonna, and Warhol.
“I was trying to communicate an idea; I was trying to paint a very urban landscape. I was trying to make paintings different from the paintings that I saw a lot of at the time, which were mostly minimal, and they were highbrow and alienating, and I wanted to make very direct paintings that most people would feel the emotion behind when they saw them.”- Jean-Michel Basquiat Basquiat showed an inclination for drawing & painting at a very early age, presumably, owing to his mother, who always encouraged him to create art. They visited many New York art exhibitions and by the age of six, Jean Michel had already become a Junior Member of the Brooklyn Museum. After his parents’ divorce, he lived briefly with his father (his mother suffered from mental disorder and was unable to care for him). Eventually, Jean Michel ran away from home, was adopted by his friend's family, spray-painted buildings in Lower Manhattan under the nom de plume SAMO, tried attending various schools in New Y...