1980s Jean-Michel Basquiat Exhibition Poster: Basquiat at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery, New York: April - June 1988:
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s exhibition at Vrej Baghoomian would be the artist’s last before his death several months later. This rare sought-after and historic Basquiat exhibition poster also features the much historized Basquiat portrait with Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans. A must have 1980s Basquiat collectible, which is well-suited for framing.

Off-Set lithograph.
Dimensions: 28.75 x 21 inches ( 73 × 53 cm).
Minor signs of handling; small corner bend lower right; otherwise well-preserved, stored flat and in very good overall vintage condition.
Unsigned from a scarce edition of unknown. Few known to survive in very good condition.

Further About:
The historic photo taken in Paris by Jérôme Schlomoff, shows Basquiat tightly clasping Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans— a novel about an interracial relationship and jazz culture expressed in the "spontaneous prose" style in which Kerouac composed most of his works: A style so reminiscent of the feeling inherent to much of Basquiat's work.

'Before opening his own gallery in the late 1980s, the Iranian-born Baghoomian was known to have operated a cash business in a SoHo basement where artists desperate for money could bring their works. That gallery was owned by Baghoomian’s cousin, the iconic 1980s art dealer, Tony Shafrazi. Eventually Baghoomian came to represent Basquiat, when that artist had broken ties with his previous dealers. Baghoomian organized Basquiat’s last show in New York, and after Basquiat died of a drug overdose in the spring of 1988, just a few months after that show closed, Baghoomian was said to have claimed a fifty percent share of all the works in Basquiat’s estate, numbering in the hundreds.

During this time, Baghoomian had been pursued by creditors, among them the New York financing firm Rosenthal and Rosenthal, which had been a partner with Baghoomian in some lucrative secondary-market transactions. (One angry creditor with a stick was stalking Baghoomian in the lobby of his gallery’s SoHo building on 28 March, the day the gallery bolted its doors shut.)

At the time of Baghoomian’s disappearance, he was engaged in a bitter legal battle with the Basquiat estate, a battle that appeared to be weighing decisively in the estate’s favor. The Basquiat estate was said to be after twenty or so paintings, which Baghoomian says he sold for cash immediately after Basquiat’s death.' (The Art Newspaper 31 May 1992)

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