Andy Warhol's portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat | Christie's

Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50),’ Andy Warhol pencilled into his diary on Monday 4 October 1982. The date was to signal a major turning point in the Pop artist’s late career. ‘He brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him. He’s the kid who used the name “SAMO” when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint t-shirts… then Bruno discovered him and now he’s on Easy Street,’ Warhol mused in his own pragmatic way, adding, ‘And so, I had lunch with them, and then I took a Polaroid, and he went home, and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together.’

While it may not have been their first encounter — Basquiat recalled following Warhol into a restaurant while trying to sell him a $1 postcard, as well as sneaking into The Factory, citing: ‘I just wanted to meet him, he was an art hero of mine’ — it was certainly the first time the younger artist made an impact on the Pop master.

The seemingly casual lunch between Warhol, Basquiat, and Bischofberger was to have a profound and lasting impact on the venerated icon and the emerging king — as well as the history of art that was to follow.

Marking the impact these two giants had on the art world, Christie’s will offer Andy Warhol’s seminal painting Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982) in the 20th Century Evening Sale on 11 November, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s monumental The Guilt of Gold Teeth (1982) in the 21st Century Evening Sale on 9 November 2021.


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