Keith Haring

Keith Haring (1958-1990) was one of the leading figures of New York urban art in the 1980s. After studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York, he made a name for himself by spontaneously drawing with white chalk on black subway billboards. His playful, immediate and engaging style soon met with great success. His work is deeply influenced by graffiti, comics and street culture, but also by strong political themes: the fight against racism, the prevention of AIDS (from which he died in 1990), and the denunciation of social injustice. Haring firmly believed in the accessibility of art: he opened his Pop Shop in 1986 to make his works affordable, while continuing to produce monumental public works around the world. His works have been exhibited many times, notably in New York in 1982 and in 2013 at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.