Mugrabi Collection, New York

New York, Vrej Baghoomian Inc., Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1989, no. 34, illustrated in colour
Vienna, Kunsthaus, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1999, p. 98, illustrated in colour
Venice, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Basquiat a Venezia, 1999, pp. 108-109, illustrated in colour
Lugano, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 101, illustrated in colour
Milan, Fondazione La Triennale di Milano, The Jean-Michel Basquiat Show, 2006, p. 297, illustrated in colour

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 1996, Vol. II, p. 152, no. 2, illustrated in colour
Tony Shafrazi, Jeffrey Deitch, Richard D. Marshall et al., Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York 1999, p. 276, illustrated in colour
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, Vol. I, pp. 340-341, and Vol. II, p. 258, no. 2, illustrated in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 173, fig. 10, illustrated in colour

In May 1968, at the age of seven, Jean-Michel Basquiat was hit by a car whilst playing ball in the street. He broke his arm, suffered various internal injuries and had to have his spleen removed. He was hospitalised for a month at King's County Hospital and whilst there he was given Gray's Anatomy by his mother which was to have a profound effect on his artistic growth. The whole accident clearly had a profound effect on his development, particularly since his parents split that same year, and was to become an ever present feature of the iconography in his paintings. Early on, references to ambulances and their sounds pervaded his paintings and in 1984 two paintings, entilted Pedestrian, showed him with his injuries ag🌃ainst a backdrop of urban danger.&nb🙈sp;Here, in the current work is an apparent insight into the car which hit him.

Cast against a huge jet black expanse, the fire-engine red car is curiously similar in appearance to the one which appears in his great friend, Andy Warhol's 5 Deaths imagery of a car accident from his classic Death and Disasters series. With its emphasis on the uncontrollable wildly-coloured car and themes of an unknown and unhappy ending, Basquiat's painting does suggest deep danger.  The car, likely to be a Chevrolet - a coveted all-American possession at the time - is luxuriously painted and accented with colours of yellowish-gold and highlights of blue.  The windows, head-lights and metal parts of the car are painted a smooth silver, the execution so careful that it is almost atypical of Basquiat. Navigated by a small black figure, having taken the hit, symbolised by a thunder-bolt, it appears to be veering off the road through the infinite black space.  The figure is believed to be Gri Gri, one of Basquiat's mythological characters who was first introduced in his art a year earlier.  A Gri Gri (often spelled gris-gris in French) is a Hoodoo charm which is linked with an African American ritual often associated with the city of New Orleans.  Gri Gri would become characteristic of Basquiat's work in the late 1980s and would appear in his compo📖sitions in a variety of different contexts. 

Another reference to Warhol's work can be found in the green Batman-like wings which sprout from the car. One of Warhol's most formative paintings, Batman from 1961 is now seen as one of the most 🐷important Pop paintings and was certainly an influence on Basquiat as he was growing up painting from comic strips trying to ape Pop art. Basquiat often utilized forms of the superhero's emblem the "Bat Signal" in his art, a trademark borrowed once again from American pop culture.

Ironically, Basquiat executed Untitled the same year as Warhol's death in 1987 - an event that was deeply distressing for him.  Basquiat first met Warhol in 1978 and they had remained close friends ever since.  As Donald Rubell reflects, "The death of Andy Warhol made the death of Basquiat inevitable, somehow Warhol was the one person who he would approach... After Andy was gone there was no one who Jean-Michel was in such awe of that he would respond to" (Donald Rubell quoted in Tony Shafrazi et al., Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1999, p. 332).

Basquiat is one of the few artists whose art is a true mirror of the outside world while at the same time a reflection of himself.  Culturally charged and historically rich, his oeuvre spanning only eight years of his short lifetime provides an authentic yet often complex commentary on his position as an artist of mixed heritage in a white-dominated art world in Twentieth Century urban America.