Keith Haring biography in Biographies from the artzine on artrepublic.com

His comic book stylised figures in bright 80’s day- glow colours came off the walls of New York City and into the galleries and museums of the world. His images belie their simple appearance and often contain highly politicised messages, like his 1986 wall painting ‘Crack is Wack’. 

Keith Haring was born in 1958 in Pennsylvania. He moved to New York in 1978 and was inspired by the East Village club scene. His first graffiti art took the form of decorating billboards on the New York Subway either with marker pen or white chalk on blank boards. 

Haring caused debate by deliberately commercialising his work and opening his own retail stores in 1986. But Haring also continued to paint on walls including a section of the Berlin wall. Towards the end of his life he devoted his time to the Keith Haring Foundation, set up to convey the dangers of AIDS, which claimed the artist’s life in 1990.