Basquiat was one of the most styish men who went from picking through bins at vintage shops to walking the runway for designer friends like Rei Kawakubo, the founder of Comme des Garçons. Yet even as an art star, Basquiat kept his eccentricities intact. He’d buy an Armani suit and then go paint in it, or he’d dress like an African prince—a cross between what a Yoruban king would wear and what you might find at Givenchy. Jean-Michel had a regal air about him—he could put on anything and look good because his style came from within. Haitian American artist. He gained popularity first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist. Basquiat's paintings continue to influence modern-day artists and command high prices.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, the son of a Haitian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. At an early age, he showed a precocious talent for drawing, and his mother enrolled him as a Junior Member of the Brooklyn Museum when he was six. Basquiat first gained notoriety as a teenage graffiti poet and musician. By 1981, at the age of twenty, he had turned from spraying graffiti on the walls of buildings in Lower Manhattan to selling paintings in SoHo galleries, rapidly becoming one of the most accomplished artists of his generation. Astute collectors began buying his art, and his gallery shows sold out. Critics noted the originality of his work, its emotional depth, unique iconography, and formal strengths in color, composition, and drawing. By 1985, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine as the epitome of the hot, young artist in a booming market. Tragically, Basquiat began using heroin and died of a drug overdose when he was just twenty-seven years old.
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