Keith Haring Art

Keith Haring (Born May 4, 1958) is an artist who was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, but he grew up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. While still young, he got interested in drawing, developing cartooning skills, learning from his father and the cultural acts around him, including Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss. To study art, he went to Ivy School of Professional Art located in Pittsburg. Haring however dropped out of the course because he felt commercial art wasn’t what he wanted to do, although he continued learning art. His continued learning and creating art saw him stage his first exhibition in 1978, becoming the first solo exhibition, an exhibition that was held in Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center. Haring later went to School of Visual Arts (SVA) after moving to New York City. New York presented a great artistic environment in all the art establishments. This also provided him with an opportunity to interact with several artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. He was very much inspired by the artistic works of Pierre Alechinsky, Brion Gysin, and Jean Dubuffet. Taking his studies at the SVA gave him an opportunity to experiment with a lot of artistic disciplines, including performance, installation, video, and a lot drawing as well. It got to a point when he started creating black and white drawings, producing hundreds of them between 1980 and 1985. Haring would later achieve so much between 1980 and 1989, getting into several solo and group exhibitions. He has done several other artistic works, including opening up a Pop Shop where he was selling t-shirts in Soho. Haring was in 1988 diagnosed with HIV and he died of AIDS in 1990.