RSSKeith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.
He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania but grew up in Kutztown and was interested in art from an early age. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. After his studies, Keith moved to New York City, where he was greatly inspired by the graffiti art. Indeed, in New York, Haring found a thriving alternative art community that was developing outside the gallery and museum system, in the downtown streets, the subways and spaces in clubs and former dance halls. Here he became friends with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as the musicians, performance artists and graffiti writers that comprised the burgeoning art community.
In the summer of 1980 he took up drawing, inventing intricate cartoon-style murals of mutant figures locked in hyper-physical engagement. He was a meteoric star in American art during the 1980s, exhibiting and working on projects throughout the USA, Europe and Asia, and his work became a symbol of the tribal undercurrents that permeate metropolitan life.
He’s one of the father of street art.
