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Lot Essay
Executed in 1983, 'Mr. Kipper' is one of only a few portraits of fellow artists that Basquiat painted during his short and incendiary artistic career. Entitled rather formally 'Mr. Kipper', the painting is an elaborate and vibrant portrait of the American photographer and contemporary artist Harry Kipper. More heavily worked in places than is often the case in Basquiat's paintings, the artist has taken more care than usual with the features of Mr. Kipper's face in order to create a recognisable portrait. Elsewhere in the painting he has scrawled, pasted and smeared the paint with his characteristic mixture of speed, surety and irreverance, lining the right-hand side of the painting with what appear to be biographical artifacts, such as the name Harry and a coin dating from 1949, a number which is repeated in the top right hand corner of the work.
Much of Basquiat's work seems childlike in the rawness of its expression, yet, as his rendering of the coin in this work illustrates, there is an elegance to his line and a surety to his touch that clearly distinguishes his painting from that of a child. Similarly, the awkwardness with which the face of Mr. Kipper has been rendered in this work appears adolescent at first glance. Yet the clumsiness of this seemingly half-trained attempt at rendering a likeness is deliberately highlighted by Basquiat, who has repeated and emphasized the awkwardly scrawled lines and features of the face with a variety of clashing colours and smeared lines of paint. This is a technique the artist repeatedly used and such conscious smearing, obliteration and repeated overpainting is evident in other parts of this work, from the bottom right daubs of blue paint where he has wiped his hands on the canvas to the masking of the number nine - supposedly in favour of its written equivalent - and the obliteration of the face of Liberty. It is perhaps the word 'Liberty' that Basquiat most wishes to stress in this work, for by crossing out the face of Liberty's female incarnation in brilliant white paint, he inevitably draws our attention to it all the more.
Much of Basquiat's work seems childlike in the rawness of its expression, yet, as his rendering of the coin in this work illustrates, there is an elegance to his line and a surety to his touch that clearly distinguishes his painting from that of a child. Similarly, the awkwardness with which the face of Mr. Kipper has been rendered in this work appears adolescent at first glance. Yet the clumsiness of this seemingly half-trained attempt at rendering a likeness is deliberately highlighted by Basquiat, who has repeated and emphasized the awkwardly scrawled lines and features of the face with a variety of clashing colours and smeared lines of paint. This is a technique the artist repeatedly used and such conscious smearing, obliteration and repeated overpainting is evident in other parts of this work, from the bottom right daubs of blue paint where he has wiped his hands on the canvas to the masking of the number nine - supposedly in favour of its written equivalent - and the obliteration of the face of Liberty. It is perhaps the word 'Liberty' that Basquiat most wishes to stress in this work, for by crossing out the face of Liberty's female incarnation in brilliant white paint, he inevitably draws our attention to it all the more.