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March 23, 2018

After Hours: Basquiat painting is here at SAM

Image from Yusaku Maezawa Collection
A collector reportedly paid more than $110 million to acquire “Untitled,” and will build a new museum in Japan to show it.

SEATTLE — You can see American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's famed work “Untitled” in a special one-painting exhibition through Aug. 13 at Seattle Art Museum.

SAM said that the piece has never been publicly exhibited since 1982. Collector Yusaku Maezawa reportedly paid more than $110 million to acquire the painting, which is now on an international tour.

“We are pleased to bring this extraordinary painting to Seattle,” says Kimerly Rorschach, SAM's Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO.

Basquiat (1960-1988) grew up in Brooklyn and first became known by spray-painting sayings on walls in Lower Manhattan. He was one of the youngest artists ever in the Whitney Biennial.

The bright blue painting is dominated by a skull-like head wearing a crown. SAM said the “dynamic sense of flux and change, with the re-workings, redactions, and erasures” show the young artist's vision. His prolific art career ended in 1988 when he died of a drug overdose.

After the tour “Untitled” will go to a new museum that Maezawa is building in Chiba, Japan.

SAM's major exhibition “Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas” continues through May 13.

More information is at http://www.seattleartmuseum.org.



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