Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960 in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn to Gerard and Matilde. Gerard Basquiat was born in Haiti. He came from a well-to-to family and went on to be a relatively successful accountant in New York.

Jean-Michel was far more close to his mother, Matilde. Matilde spoke Caribbean Spanish to young Jean and he learned the language early on. She took Jean to see museums and the paintings in them. In 1966, at the ripe old age of six, Jean-Michel already carried a card identifying him as a "Junior Member" of the Brooklyn Museum.

In 1968, while playing softball on East 35th street in Brooklyn, a passing automobile hit Basquiat. He breaks his arm and surgeons had to remove his spleen. [An interesting fact is that this is the same year that Andy Warhol would also have his spleen removed after being shot. I think they were just a month apart.] While he was recovering in the hospital, his mother brought him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy to read. We can see from his later paintings just how much this text was instantly Rolodexed into his memory. Jean-Michel’s noise band will later be called Gray, surely after the anatomy book of the same name. Matilde was also encouraging Jean to continue with his artistic interests, humbly aware that Michelangelo and all great painters studied anatomy. When asked if he thought Gray’s text helped heal, immersing his consciousness in drawings and names of the working parts of the body Basquiat answered, "Sounds true."

In 1974 Gerard Basquiat, now separated from Matilde, moved with his children to Mira Mar, Puerto Rico. They lived there until 1976. This year and a half immersion, when Jean-Michel was in his early teens reinforced his Spanish. He later vacationed again to the island in 1987.

Jean-Michel dropped out of school in 1977 and he ran away from home and lived in Washington Square Park, eating LSD and using other assorted drugs. He made friends with other struggling young artists like Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf.

This is about the time when he fell into an early graffiti movement with his friend Al Diaz. Together, Al and Jean-Michel begin collaborating on SAMO, a character that makes a living selling fake religion. The two begin spray painting phrases and cryptic texts around Lower Manhattan such as "SAMO IS AN END TO MINDWASH", "SAMO SAVES IDIOTS", and "PLUSH SAFE HE THINK." Everybody loved SAMO. ''It's a tool for mocking bogusness,'' Basquiat would say. He gained an underground celebrity. The icon of traditional graffiti holds fast to Basquiat’s answer to an interviewer’s question: "What is your subject matter?" to which he replied. "Royalty, heroism, and the streets."

In 1978, Basquiat dropped out of high school and left home, a year before graduating. He lived in abandoned buildings and supported himself with odd jobs and to make some money, he sold painted T-shirts and handmade postcards on West Broadway where he approached Andy Warhol and Henry Geldzahler in a Soho restaurant. He sells some of the art to Warhol. By 1979, however, Basquiat had gained a certain celebrity status amidst the thriving art scene of Manhattan’s East Village through his regular appearances on Glenn O’Brien’s live public-access cable show, TV Party.

In the late 1970s, Basquiat formed a band called Gray, playing occasionally with the unknown musician and actor Vincent Gallo. Gray played at clubs such as Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. Basquiat worked with Gallo again in the film Downtown 81 [a.k.a New York Beat Movie] which featured some of Gray’s rare recordings on its soundtrack. He also appeared in Blondie’s video “Rapture” as a replacement for DJ Grandmaster Flash when he was a no-show.

Basquiat first started to gain recognition as an artist in June 1980, when he participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated. In 1981, poet, art critic and cultural provocateur Rene Ricard published his iconic article "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine. This helped to launch Basquiat’s career to an international stage. During the next few years, he continued exhibiting his works around New York alongside artists such as Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, as well as internationally, promoted by such gallery owners and patrons as Annina Nosei, Vrej Baghoomian, Larry Gagosian, Mary Boone and Bruno Bischofberger.

Philistines, 1982
Acrylic and oil paintstick on canvas.
Mr. & Mrs. Thomas E. Worrell Jr.

1982 is thought to be the year that Basquiat made some of his most important pieces and many of his masterpieces were done in this year.  Basquiat was featured in a group show along with Francesco Clemente, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel. Schnabel will later go on to write and direct the biographical film Basquiat in 1996.

In 1983, Basquiat is included in the "1983 Biennial Exhibition" at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is also in 1983 that Basquiat was befriended by Warhol. They go on to become close friends and collaborate on many pieces together.

Moses and the Egyptians, 1982
Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
185 x 137 cm

By 1984 many of Basquiat's friends become concerned about his excessive drug use. His paranoia was also fueled by the very real threat of people stealing work from his apartment and art dealers taking unfinished work from his studio. On February 10, 1985, Basquiat appears on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. At Christie’s spring auction of contemporary paintings Basquiat’s UNTITLED (SKULL) 1981 brings in a record $19,000. The painting had originally sold for $4,000 the year before. Basquiat is 23 years old.

By 1985, Basquiat’s deteriorating health becomes more noticeable, particularly the dark spots on his face. These discolored patches might have been caused by the removal of his spleen, which kept his body from cleaning out the toxins from the drugs he took throughout his life. In the months before his death Basquiat claimed to be doing up to a hundred bags of heroin a day.

On February 22, 1987 Andy Warhol dies. Basquiat appears devastated by his loss. He paints GRAVESTONE, a memorial to Warhol. It is said that the death of Andy Warhol made the death of Basquiat inevitable as somehow Warhol was the only person that could always bring Basquiat back from the so-called edge.

After Andy died there was no one that Jean-Michel was in such awe of that he would respond to. Basquiat visits his ranch in Maui and returns to New York in July of 1988. Less than a month later, on Friday, August 22, 1988, inside his 57 Great Jones Street loft, Jean-Michel Basquiat, American painter, died of a heroin overdose.

He was 27 years old.