Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work from the Schorr Family Collection

The first book on the drawings and works on paper of this legendary cult artist.

Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name, Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing is the first book on the Schorr Collection of Basquiat’s works on paper. Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was barely out of his teens when he rocketed to the center of New York’s art scene; he was 27 when he died of a heroin overdose. A friend of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, and always controversial, Basquiat is now established as a major contemporary painter whose unique work continues to enthral. Herbert and Lenore Schorr began collecting the work of Basquiat in 1981, before his first New York exhibition.

During the artist’s seminal years of 1982–83, the Schorrs acquired several of his most important paintings, but in contrast to virtually every other early collector, the Schorrs also pursued and acquired a great number of works on paper both directly from the artist and from his first dealer. Their collection demonstrates the focus and ambition that the artist invested in the medium of drawing.

About the Author:

Fred Hoffman met Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982 and worked closely with him during the artist’s residency in Venice, California, from 1982 to 1984. He cocurated Basquiat’s retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005. Hoffman is the Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.