The Whole Livery Line signed, titled and dated '"THE WHOLE LIVERY LINE" Jean-Michel Basquiat 87' (on the reverse) acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas 49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.) Executed in 1987. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Pay For Soup signed, titled and dated 'Jean-Michel Basquiat "PAY FOR SOUP" 87' (on the reverse) acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas 49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.) Executed in 1987.This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Universal signed, titled and dated 'Jean-Michel Basquiat 'Universal' 87' (on the reverse) acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas 49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.) Executed in 1987. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Details

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
The Whole Livery Line
signed, titled and dated '"THE WHOLE LIVERY LINE" Jean-Michel Basquiat 87' (on the reverse)
acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas
49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.)
Executed in 1987. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Pay For Soup
signed, titled and dated 'Jean-Michel Basquiat "PAY FOR SOUP" 87' (on the reverse)
acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas
49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.)
Executed in 1987.This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Universal
signed, titled and dated 'Jean-Michel Basquiat 'Universal' 87' (on the reverse)
acrylic, oil and oilstick on canvas
49½ x 39½ in. (125.6 x 100.3 cm.)
Executed in 1987. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee for the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Provenance

Vrej Baghoomian Inc., New York
Galerie Hans Meyer, Düsseldorf

Literature

T. Shafrazi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York 1999, pp. 284-285 (illustrated)
R. D. Marshall and J.-L. Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, pp. 260-262, no.7-9 (illustrated).

Exhibited

New York, Vrej Braghoomian Inc., Jean-Michel Basquiat, October-November 1989, no. 30-32 (illustrated).

Special notice

Christie's interest in property consigned for sale. Christie's generally offers property consigned by others for sale at public auction. From time to time, lots are offered which Christie's International Plc or one of it's subsidiary companies owns in whole or in part. Each such lot is offered subject to a reserve. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

A suite of three Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings from 1987, these paintings evoke Basquiat's "graffiti" roots when the artist was first living in New York and spray-painting spontaneous "street poetry" on buildings. Basquiat combines texts--equally humorous and cryptic and rendered in the artist's raw, yet poignant handwriting--with a few scattered scattered images. As is evidenced by the abbreviated "TWOM" in Pay for Soup, a clear influence is Cy Twombly, one of the artist's heroes, whose work has long merged poetry with painting. Like Twombly, Basquiat elevated small details--a diamond shape, a universal logo, scrawled text--by realizing them on a large-scale and thereby turning them into grander statements about culture and society.

Lot Essay

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