Keith Haring
Chalked radiant babies and barking dogs on the New York subway, then opened a shop to sell them cheap.
Keith Haring was born in Pennsylvania in 1958, moved to New York in 1978, and began drawing in white chalk on the black paper that covered unsold advertising panels in the subway — thousands of drawings, made fast, in a line he never varied. The radiant baby, the barking dog, the dancing figures and the crawling infant became a public language within three years. He opened the Pop Shop in 1986 specifically so that the work would stay affordable, painted murals worldwide, and was open about his AIDS diagnosis, establishing a foundation before his death in 1990 at thirty-one.
Haring is among the most counterfeited artists of the twentieth century, and the Foundation dissolved its authentication committee in 2012, so no body now issues opinions — provenance is everything. Subway drawings on paper are frequently faked and frequently misdescribed. The prints, screenprints and lithographs in documented editions are the most tradeable part of the output and are catalogued. Pop Shop merchandise, posters and licensed product circulate in enormous quantity and are routinely offered as limited editions when they are not.
If you own a work by Keith Haring
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.