Keith Haring

Keith Haring (1958-1990) was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA. After a brief stint at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, he moved to New York City in 1978 and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Haring soon became established in New York's thriving alternative art community and began to organize and participate in exhibitions and performances at Club 57 and other alternative venues. Determined to devote his career to creating a truly public art, Haring began to create drawings in white chalk upon blank paper panels throughout the subway system. The subway became, as Haring said, a "laboratory" for working out his ideas and experimenting with his simple lines. During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring’s work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery. Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his time to public works, which often carried social messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. He died of AIDS related complications at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990. The work of Keith Haring can be seen today in the exhibitions and collections of major museums around the world. (Excerpted from The Keith Haring Foundation website)