love at first sight

 

 

In 1968, when he was 10 years old, Keith Haring declared, “When I grow up I would like to be an artist in France.”

And so it was. The Reading, Pa.-born artist’s first solo show in a museum took place in Bordeaux, France, in 1985, after which he wrote to the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art, saying, “You can keep everything but my brushes. I care about my brushes".
“He was very generous and very caring, intelligent in his relationships with people,” said Odile Burluraux, now curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, which is hosting yet another milestone for the American Pop artist in France. Opening Friday and running simultaneously at the museum and Le Centquatre through Aug. 18.

The new Paris exhibition is showcasing 250 of his works.

As a student in NYC at Parson's School of Design-I studied graphic design.
I lived downtown about the time that Keith started his subway work.

They started to pop up everywhere almost like magic- the same subway stop you where at in evening-had an amazing black and white Haring image the next morning.
I longed for the day that i would see him painting but it never happened.
I did notice that no one ever defaced his work-they knew how important an artist and soul he was.

 

"Crack is Wack" still stands uptown today.

I loved Keith Haring's work from the minute I saw it and it change my love of art and influenced my own work forever.