Portrait with Jack Kerouac (Basquiat's final exhibition)
1988

About the Item

Jean-Michel Basquiat Portrait with Jack Kerouac (Basquiat's final exhibition), 1988 Offset Lithograph for 1988 Vrej Baghoomian exhibition. Historic. Thankfully the poster has not been ruined by a fake or forged signature. He boycotted the show; none were signed by Basquiat before he died. Not Signed 28 3/4 × 21 inches Unframed Jean-Michel Basquiat’s exhibition posters chronicle the street art legend’s life and career, including his early days as a struggling graffiti artist, his famed collaborations with Andy Warhol, and his posthumous rise to contemporary art market superstar. The Batman Show (1979) is Basquiat’s first known exhibition poster, featuring a line drawing of a bat in Basquiat’s signature sketched style. Basquiat, still relatively unknown at the time, wasn’t even exhibiting at the show but was tapped nonetheless to create the exhibition poster by the show’s curator Diego Cortez, a well-connected artist and filmmaker responsible for introducing Basquiat to many players in the art world. A year later, Cortez organized Basquiat’s first showing of his childlike paintings with “The Time Square Show,” ushering an eight-year period of worldwide exhibitions that left behind a myriad of collectible posters. Highlights from this era include the boxing-themed posters from his joint exhibition with Warhol at The Palladium in 1985, the dynamic yellow posters from his “Supercomb”exhibition at Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris in 1988, and the photographic posters for his final show at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in New York in 1988, which feature a haunting portrait of the artist holding a Jack Kerouac novel shortly before his premature death later that year. Rare exhibition poster for Basquiat's show at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery, NY, April - June 1988, photograph by Jerome Schlomoff. Text reads: "Jean-Michel Basquiat Vrej Baghoomian 611 Broadway New York April 29 - June 11". Historic, uncommon offset lithograph poster from what would become the very last exhibition of Basquiat's short life. Indeed, what makes this poster so extraordinary is that this exhibition ended June 11th, 1988 - almost exactly two months before Basquiat's own life ended, at the age of 27, on August 12, 1988. Unframed. Sheet: 28 3/4" x 21". This was done in Basquiat's lifetime making it such a collectible. Phoebe Hoban reported in her biography, "Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art": .."the FBI in 1994 investigated a matter in which Vrej Baghoomian, the dealer who represented the painter at the time of his death, had sold five fake Basquiats at a Paris art fair. Though he apparently hadn’t made the fakes himself, and was never convicted, “Vrej was a big crook,” says the artist Rick Prol, Basquiat’s last assistant. “He got kicked out of the art world, and then he died....We do know that Basquiat was falling apart in 1988. Prol helped the artist prepare for what became his final show, at the Vrej Baghoomian Gallery that spring. “He seemed like a ghost—like something was gone,” remembers Prol, who had been hired by Baghoomian in hopes that he might inspire the barely functioning artist. “He didn’t seem interested in anything—sex, or seeing anybody, or doing the work. He seemed very isolated and alone.”" - Liza Ghorban, New York Magazine, 2011. Again - this was the very last poster created for his very last exhibition before Jean-Michel Basquiat died at the young age of only 27. Basquiat boycotted the opening, refused to sign or do meet and greets for the show. (Color us beyond skeptical when signed ones alight in the market, as he is not known to have signed any copies of this poster.)

Creation Year:

1988

Dimensions:

Height: 28.75 in (73.03 cm)Width: 21 in (53.34 cm)

Medium:

Offset

Movement & Style:

Pop Art

After:

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 - 1988, American)

Period:

1980-1989