Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) - Leonardo da Vinci’s Greatest Hits - Artestar licensed print - COA

Photolithography by Jean-Michel Basquiat (*)
High-quality reproduction of the work “Leonardo da Vinci’s Greatest Hits” (**) a piece created by Basquiat in 1982.
Luxury edition on high‑grade Monte Carlo watercolor paper (300 g/m2)
Print authorized by Artestar New York.
Copyright of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Includes Certificate of Authenticity (COA).

Specifications:

- Support dimensions: 50 x 45 cm
- Stain dimensions: 40 x 35 cm
- Condition: Excellent (this work has never been framed or exhibited, and has always been kept in a professional art folder, therefore offered in perfect condition).

The work will be carefully handled and packed in a reinforced cardboard package. The shipment will be shipped with tracking, operated by the best transport companies.

The shipment will also include full insurance for the final value of the work with full reimbursement in case of loss or damage, at no cost to the buyer.

(*) Jean-Michel Basquiat was the first of the three children of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. His father was a Haitian accountant of respectable financial solvency and his mother a Puerto Rican graphic designer of great prestige in her profession. Jean-Michel grew up in a troubled family environment; his parents divorced and, due to this situation, he had to change schools many times. He studied at a private Catholic school, later at a public school and finally, at 16, he enrolled in City-As-School, a school for gifted teenagers, from which he was expelled, for rebellion, a year before graduating.
In his youth he came into contact with the subculture of the big city, related to drug use and street gangs. In 1977, together with Al Díaz, he entered the world of graffiti, painting on subway cars and in the SoHo area, a New York neighborhood where art galleries proliferate.
The following year he left school a year before graduating from high school and left home to live for two years on the streets, in abandoned buildings or with his friends in Lower Manhattan, surviving by selling postcards and T-shirts that he decorated himself. He continued to practice graffiti; his tags and writings carried a heavy poetic and philosophical charge, but above all satirical. The alias of his alter ego shared with Al Díaz was SAMO (short for “Same Old Shit,” i.e., “the same old crap,” with which they signed their tags and graffiti with cryptic messages. The use of this name was decisive in his life.
These murals carried inscriptions such as “SAMO saves fools” or “SAMO ends religious brainwashing, the politics of nothingness and false philosophy.” An article about SAMO’s street writing published in The Village Voice was the first hint that the art world was taking an interest in him.
The artist had several relationships that influenced his work; one of the most significant was with artist Andy Warhol.
Similarly, in romantic matters, he was involved with several women; one of the best known today is Madonna. Lower Manhattan was the area where they lived at that time, and in 1982 they began spending more time together and going out to parties in galleries. A shared interest was that she said in an interview, “I was a huge fan of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.”
In 1988 exhibitions were installed in Paris and New York, and in April of that same year he tried to abandon his addictions and retreated to his home in Hawaii. He returned to New York in June, announcing that he had freed himself from addictions, but on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27, he died of a heroin overdose, becoming the most successful visual artist in the history of Afro-descendant art. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Throughout his brief but intense artistic career, he would hold more than 40 solo exhibitions and participate in around 100 group shows. Self-promotion and advertising appeal were priorities for Basquiat, as they had been for Andy Warhol or Julian Schnabel previously.
Neo-expressionism came to dominate over appropriationism, partly thanks to the economic strength that pushed art prices, especially painting, to high levels, and partly thanks to the support of galleries and collectors. Criticism, however, was not unanimous in its assessment, and there were frequent accusations that neo-expressionist discourse lacked theoretical grounding. It was claimed that the neo-expressionist art they practiced had no political or social meaning, was merely merchandise, and therefore subject to the fluctuations of the market. Neo-expressionist painting was reduced to a consumer product and, as such, a creatively disqualified and vulgar act.

(**) No theme is more powerful or more coveted in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) than the singular skull. For this enigmatic artist, the human head was more than an obsession. As suggested by the title “In This Case” (1983), the head is a box or cage that houses a geared machine full of impulses and ideas.
This work ranks among Basquiat’s greatest achievements: a cranial abyss into which the artist has poured the contents of his visual imagination, blending centuries of stylistic influence.
“In This Case” is one of the three monumental skulls Basquiat painted. The painting’s intensity and immediacy are unmatched in Basquiat’s oeuvre.