Untitled (1982)

Painted in 1982 — the most prolific and incandescent year of Jean-Michel Basquiat's short career, when he produced more than 200 major canvases — this 'Untitled' places a black, crowned skull at the centre of a burning red ground and surrounds it with fragments of anatomy, numerals, and crossed-out words. It distils the year he broke out of New York's graffiti scene into the global gallery system at age 22. The work has travelled widely, featured in major Basquiat retrospectives at SFMOMA and elsewhere, and in 2017 another 1982 Basquiat skull sold for USD 110.5 million, cementing this year as the peak of his market.

Exhibition Venue

SFMOMA

San Francisco, United States