1 - Keith Haring

Keith Haring Pop Shop V 1989 4 colour screenprints on card Each 34.3 x 41.8 cm. Framed individually under glass. Each stamped "CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY" verso, authorised and numbered by Keith Haring's estate administrator, Julia Gruen. Proof 147/200. Edition Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York (with embossed stamp). Klaus Littmann, Keith Haring, Editions on paper, 1982-1989, Das druckgraphische Werk, exhib.cat. Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Stuttgart 1993, p.148/149 Provenance Martin Lawrence Galleries, New York (adhesive label verso and with gallery certificate) (1994); private ownership, South Germany "Pop Shop V" derives its name from Keith Haring’s store of the same name, which opened in New York in 1986. Through the sale of affordable clothing, posters, and other ephemera, Haring sought to make his art accessible to a wider audience. His engagement with multiples also led to his extensive use of screen printing, a medium closely associated with the Pop Art movement and notably popularised by artists such as Andy Warhol in the 1960s. Created in 1989, these screenprints date from the height of Haring’s career, just one year before his death in 1990. The work is characterised by a limited palette of purple, pink, orange, and turquoise, set against Haring’s instantly recognisable, bold black lines. Across the composition, human and dolphin-like figures interact in a sequence of dynamic poses. The relationship between the figures appears playful and reciprocal, with the dolphin responding to the human figure and, ultimately, seeming to transform into a human-like presence itself. Haring captures a sense of movement and animation in this screenprint, using his distinctive visual language to create a scene reminiscent of a cartoon sequence. In Pop Shop V, Haring combines the accessibility of popular imagery with the visual vocabulary that characterises his work.