"I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents."
Pablo Picasso (artist)
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It’s a spring day in 1968. The American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, then seven years old, is playing outside on the New York City street when, out of nowhere, he gets hit by a car. Though he survives, he spends months recuperating in the hospital.
There he becomes infected…with creative inspiration.
To keep him entertained, Basquiat’s mother gives him a copy of Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body. The boy goes crazy for the textbook, an impressive medical tome filled with illustrations of dissections. He spends his days immersed in clavicles, craniums and organs of all varieties.
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Anatomical drawing from Henry Gray’s "Anatomy of the Human Body", 1858.
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Although he heals from his injuries, Basquiat never gets over Gray’s Anatomy. By the time he’s a teenager, he’s into graffiti and poetry. He picks up painting, too, and incorporates broken-bodied skeletal figures into his work.
Basquiat’s painting Untitled depicts a human skull, an image he appropriated (i.e. borrowed) from African art. The skin on the left side of the skull's face seems to have been pulled back. Clenched teeth, gums and flesh are all nakedly visible.
The artist was obsessed with the theme of death, but this skull doesn’t seem dead; it’s got emotion in its round eyes and an almost pained expression (who wouldn’t with that many cracks and stitches all over?)
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Jean-Michel Basquiat, "Untitled", 1981, The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection, Los Angeles. ©The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat / ADAGP, Paris 2016.
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Associated with Neo-Expressionists, artists known for using bold colors and evoking strong emotions in their work, Basquiat mixed mediums, techniques and influences. Throughout his explosive but short career (he died at the age of 27), he referenced Gray’s Anatomy—even off the canvas.
The name of his noise-rock music group? Gray, of course.
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Photograph of Jean-Michel Basquiat (left) playing in his group, Gray.
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 I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.
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Pablo Picasso (artist) 
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Jean-Michel Basquiat, "Red Man", 1981, 6.7 x 6.9 ft, private collection, ©The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat / ADAGP, Paris 2016.
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Lawrence Alma-Tadema often painted scenes from what period in history?
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Contact Co-Founders Coline and Jean at hello@artips.co.
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