Jean Michel-Basquiat

Jean Michel-Basquiat gained popularity first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist. In 1977, when he was 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray painting graffiti on slum buildings in lower Manhattan, adding his signature/tag of "SAMO" or "SAMO shit"(same ol' shit). Basquiat first started to gain recognition as an artist in June 1980, when he participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition. In 1982, Basquiat met Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated extensively, eventually forging a close, if strained, friendship. By 1984, many of Basquiat's friends were concerned about his excessive drug use and increasingly erratic behavior, including signs of paranoia. Basquiat had developed a frequent heroin habit by this point, starting from his early years living among the junkies and street artists in New York's underground. Basquiat died of mixed-drug toxicity (he had been combining cocaine and heroin in his Great Jones Street loft/studio in 1988.
Basquiat's art career is known for his three broad, though overlapping styles. In the earliest period, from 1980 to late 1982, Basquiat used painterly gestures on canvas, often depicting skeletal figures and mask-like faces that expressed his obsession with mortality. Other frequently depicted imagery such as automobiles, buildings, police, children's sidewalk games, and graffiti came from his experience painting on the city streets. In 1982, Basquiat became friends with pop artist Andy Warhol and the two made a number of collaborative works. They also painted together, influencing each others' work. Some speculated that Andy Warhol was merely using Basquiat for some of his techniques and insight.