Keith HARING - Rain Dance. 1985 - Original offset lithograph

Roy Lichtenstein : Born in New York in 1923, he is one of the most important artists of The American Pop Art movement, finding inspiration in advertising, popular imagery and comic strips. Woman with Flowered Hat has held the record for highest Lichtenstein auction price in May 15, 2013 (sold for $56.1 million, including fees, at Christie's). Approximatly 4500 of his works are exhibited around the world. The artist died in 1997.
Andy Warhol : American artist of Slovak origins, he was born in Pittsburgh in 1928. Warhol is a key figure of the American avant-garde, leader of The Pop Art movement since 1960's. He graduated from Fine-Arts in 1949, and settled in New York to begin a career in advertising, using his draughtsman and illustrator's skills. Also creator of theater costumes, he chose an androgynous look and wore a platinum blonde wig and picked his name after his birth name: Andrew Warhola. He realized his first works drawing inspiration from comics (Popeye, 1961) or labels of common consummation products (Del Monte Peach Halves, Coca-Cola, Campbell's Soup). In 1962, Warhol took part in the « nouveaux réalistes » exhibition in New York, with Roy Lichtenstein and Yves Klein, which introduced Pop Art as an artistic movement. Through silkscreen printing, he elaborated series about celebrities (Liz Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy or Elvis). He also used them to revisit Mona Lisa's myth and proceeded to a study about flowers. Warhol's art is close to cinema, in which he worked starting from 1963. He considerably inspired cinematographic avant-garde. Appearing often in magazines, he was considered as an marginal icon. He opened his workshop-studio The « Factory » in 1963, which became one of the trendiest places of New York's life. The band The Velvet Underground, settled in it in its early stages. Warhol shot several experimental films there. He met Keith Haring in 1983, became his mentor, and was then joined Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1986 to contribute to the renewal of expressionist figuration. The artist died in New York in 1987.
Jean-Michel Basquiat : (1960–1988) was an american artist, icone and pionnieer of the "underground" movement. He achieved notoriety very early, under the name of "SAMO", which was an informal group of graffiti, who wrote enigmatic epigrams in Manhattan in the end of the 70's, where different circles of influence met, such as hip-hop, post-punk, or street art. Starting from the 1980's, he exhibited his neo-expressionist and primitivist works in international galleries and museums. His encounter with Andy Warhol was critical: he took him under his wing, and made several artistic collaborations together. They remained very close to each other until the Pop Art master died. For Warhol, Basquiat was «a mirror reflecting what he had been, what he was and what he would have dreamed to be». He brutally died, aged 27 only. He left behind him 800 paintings, and 1500 drawings. His first retrospective took place at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1992.
Keith Haring : (1958-1990), born in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, was one of the major American artist of the 80's. He studied at the School of Visual Arts of New York in 1978 and 1979. He discovered there the tremendous alternative culture and met underground artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat or Madonna. His art was born from the graffiti artists' means of expression: it is similar to "tags" or "slangs". Starting from 1981, Haring covered New York subway billboards with graffiti. The same year, Tony Shafrazi organized his first exhibition. Keith Haring developed a style inspired by comics and electronic images. He mixed historical and media-friendly cultures to reach an iconography based on archetypes. Like American Pop Art artists, his art is the echo of a world marked by its own contradictions, shared between the American dream, and the social reality of racism, exclusion and violence. His work continued to evolve, and to reach international recognition, until his premature death. He spread his own images in the form of badges, tee-shirts, posters, through his "Pop shop". The artist created environments: sculptures with African totem shapes, wall paintings in public spaces etc. Above all, Keith Haring dedicated his art to causes in which he believed, such as anti-nuclear campaigns, or campaigns against South African apartheid. Between 1982 and 1989, he created no less than 50 public works, around the globe, mainly for charities, hospitals, or orphanages. As a truly engaged artist, Keith Haring participated actively to the fight against AIDS, as he was himself infected in 1988. He died of the complications of the illness in 1990, leaving behind him a profuse and singular work, which survives him thanks to numerous retrospectives, and thanks to the uninterrupted presence of his pictograms in the popular culture and by-products. His works are today conserved in the most important museums in the world.
Offset print : This process is the evolution of lithography. This is an improvement that consists of replacing the lithographic stone with a layer (or cylinder).