Posthumous Basquiat: Art Ephemera From After August 12, 1988
For serious collectors of art ephemera one important consideration is that items date from when an artist is alive and working. There is a certain logic to this. The best art ephemera chronicles an artist’s career and for most artists very little of significance happens after their death.
Jean-Michel Basquiat is the exception here, an artist whose presence, popularity and importance has continued to surge after he has died. Basquiat’s short 8 years career, masked his prodigious production and there has been much to discovered and re-evaluate after his death. His soaring prices—a key part in a much broader art world story—has also kept him front and center. Finally, there is the dramatic arc of Basquiat’s brilliant but tragic life. The story of a groundbreaking “outsider” climbing to the heights and then dying young has proved irresistible for writers, filmmakers and graphic novelists.
Gallery 98’s earlier online exhibition A Survey of Jean-Michel Basquiat Ephemera focused on the art ephemera produced when he was still alive.
From the Collection
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
• Bass Museum
• Cindy Sherman
• David Salle
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Jenny Holzer
• Julian Schnabel
• Kenny Scharf
• Martin Wong
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Ronnie Cutrone
Sold
Sold
$200
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
$75
Sold
Sold
• Gallery Exhibition Cards
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Julian Schnabel
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Roy Lichtenstein
• Sperone Westwater
Sold
Sold
• David Salle
• Donald Baechler
• Expressionism
• Francesco Clemente
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Julian Schnabel
• Kenny Scharf
• Sandro Chia
• Tony Shafrazi Gallery
Sold
Sold
Sold
$125
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
$125
• Auction Catalogues & Price Lists
• BLADE
• Blade - Books, Catalogs, Periodicals
• Graffiti and Street Art
• Henry Chalfant
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Keith Haring
• Kenny Scharf
• Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)
• Martha Cooper
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
$250
Sold
• African Diaspora
• Artforum Advertisements
• Cheim & Read
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Robert Miller Gallery
• Text and Word Art
Sold
Sold
$125
Sold
Sold
-
![]()
Mary Boone Gallery:A History in Art Ephemera
CollectionsMary Boone’s decision to close her galleries as she gets ready to begin serving a 30-month jail sentence for tax evasion, brings to a halt the storied reign of one of New York’s most public and successful dealers. -
![]()
The Anomalous Baird Jones (1955–2008)
CollectionsFew people personify the free-wheeling, polymorphous spirit of fin-de-siècle downtown New York as well as the idiosyncratic curator, club party promoter, photographer, author, and celebrity gossip Baird Jones. -
![]()
AREA: Cards and Invites from the Legendary Nightclub, 1983–1986
CollectionsAREA became New York City’s top club in the mid-80s, with much of its success rooted in its popularity among artists, many of whom participated in the club’s ambitious program of creating new themes and décor every six weeks. -
![]()
The Strange World of Neke Carson: Early Works, 1970–85
CollectionsThis is a show filled with unusual masterpieces: psychologically-charged drawings that hint at impropriety; ephemera from guerrilla performances staged in Soho galleries without permission; the notorious rectal-realist paintings created with a paintbrush in his behind; and objects connected with ventures like Carson’s LaRocka Modeling Agency and LaRocka Nite Club (later… -
![]()
A Survey of Jean-Michel Basquiat Ephemera: 1981–88
CollectionsSimilar to the way paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat have played a key role in the frenzy surrounding contemporary high-end art auctions, the same is happening in the more limited market of vintage contemporary art ephemera. The cards, posters and publications that feature Basquiat and chart the important moments in his… -
![]()
Christy Rupp: Rats and Other Early Works, 1979–1983
CollectionsChristy Rupp achieved early fame with her art when a street poster she created became the focus of widespread media attention in 1979 during a contentious, three-week strike by NYC sanitation workers. -
![]()
Photo Cut-Outs: M. Henry Jones’ Film Soul City, 1977–79
CollectionsThe emergence of digital photography during the last decade has provided a new perspective on photographs from the pre-digital era. The photographs that M. Henry Jones created in the late 1970s for the animated film Soul City have a special place in this story of technological change. -
![]()
Talk is Cheap: A Street Poster Exhibition, 1984
CollectionsIn the 1970s and 80s much of downtown New York lay in decay but amidst the economic squalor a surprising art renaissance emerged along the district’s streets and walls. Most people remember the graffiti from that period but of equal interest was the profusion of street posters. This was the… -
![]()
Anton Perich’s NIGHT Magazine Studio 54, Club Culture and Art, 1978-79
CollectionsNIGHT was the creation of artist and photographer Anton Perich who, inspired by Andy Warhol’s Interview, made the decision to publish his own magazine using his own money. … -
![]()
Collecting COLAB: Ephemera, Photography & Multiples, 1978–1985
CollectionsCOLAB’s ever-changing nexus of thirty to sixty artists included many who later achieved individual fame, but the group’s real contribution was the philosophy of creative engagement it advanced through collective, do-it-yourself actions. -
![]()
BLADE, King of Graffiti: Cards, Photographs, Drawings, Publications
CollectionsIn the words of curator Roger Gastman, “Before New York City made graffiti world famous, BLADE was one of the people who made it famous in New York.” BLADE (Steven Ogburn) was only fifteen years old when in 1972 he tagged his first train. By 1974 he was painting full… -
![]()
Cara Perlman: Finger-Paint Portraits, Tin Pan Alley, 1981–82
CollectionsPerlman’s portraits, executed with a painting method typically used by children, fit broadly into the 1980s wave of neo-expressionism but they go way beyond that context.
