Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960 and showed signs of possessing exceptional artistic talent by the age of four.
Of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, he began his career as a graffiti artist, eventually collaborating with Andy Warhol and David Bowie and showing his works with such heavy-hitters as Julian Schnabel and David Salle.
In 2008, one of Basquiat’s paintings sold for a record $14,600,000.00 at auction.
Battling depressive illness and having developed a pernicious heroin addiction, he died of an overdose at the age of 27.
