KEITH HARING

ARTIST

Beginning as a graffiti artist in the early 1980s, drawing barking dogs, dancing snakes, and radiant babies on unused display panels in New York City subways, Haring invented a style that opened museums and galleries to him around the world.

Born May 4, 1958, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, Keith Haring went to New York after high school to study at the School of Visual Arts. While there he abandoned traditional painting styles in favor of the chalk drawings on black paper that became his trademark. His major influences were Andy Warhol and the young graffiti artists who covered walls all over New York City with drawings inspired mostly by comic books. Children loved his work, and so did a number of influential critics. Haring, in turn, loved children and donated a great deal of time, money, and art to projects involving education and child welfare. His sculptures for children to climb on are found in playgrounds and parks in most of the world's capitals. He actively opposed apartheid in South Africa and supported such causes as gay rights and the fight against AIDS.

As a fine artist, Haring was as controversial as the Pop Artists of the 1960s, but his optimistic message and sense of fun were hard to resist, and he is represented in most museums of contemporary art. Becoming a celebrity and friend of famous people like Madonna (see card 99) did not alter the essential generosity of his nature. Kids thought he was "a cool dude," a New York Times critic described him as "an artist nobody doesn't love," and when he died of AIDS on February 16, 1990, the critic Peter Schjeldahl began his obituary: "The sweet world enhancer is gone...." He was 31. Next Card 22: ROBERT HATTOY: Environmentalist