Fishing
1981
Basquiat

Became famous as a graffiti artist in New York and then as a neo-expressionist.

Beginning in 1977, at the age of 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz painted graffiti on the walls of buildings in Manhattan, signing themselves SAMO or SAMO shit. And in December 1978, the Village Voice published an article about them. The project ended with the epitaph SAMO IS DEAD.

In 1982 Basquiat met Andy Warhol and they worked a lot together.

From 1983 to 1985, the pair made works that juxtaposed Basquiat’s virtuosic graffiti with Warhol’s vivid pop imagery. They worked together, influencing each other’s work. Their relationship lasted until Warhol’s death in 1987.

Beginning in 1984, many of Basquiat’s friends began to note his increasingly strange behavior, caused by taking drugs. Basquiat became addicted to heroin during his years living among the street artists of New York. Basquiat died of an accidental drug overdose on August 12, 1988 in his Great Jones Street studio. He was 27 years old.