Keith Haring journals

Keith Haring, Robert Farris Thompson, David Hockney

Renowned in his lifetime for spontaneous, hands-on, archetypal imagery, Keith Haring was embraced by a street audience while also winning the respect of the art establishment during his prolific and regrettably brief ten-year career. His journals, kept from his teens until just before his death from AIDS in 1990, dispel any lingering notion of him as a "naive" artist, and reveal him to be a conscientious, serious, visionary artist, committed to extending the boundaries of art. The journals track his emergence into world fame as a pop icon, his hectic and colorful social life in the New York scene, and his friendships with Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary, William S. Burroughs and other writers, musicians and artists. Haring documents his efforts to bring art and everyday life closer through the controversial Pop Shop, which remains a vital legacy of his work.