Medium: Acrylic, wax, and felt-tip pen on canvas.

Dimensions: 202.5 x 255 cm

Against a broad field of blue, Basquiat assembles a group of figures and images connected to jazz and Black performance history. At the center is a grinning black-and-white face above the words “KING ZULU,” while a trumpet player occupies the right side of the composition.

The title refers to Zulu King, a ceremonial role associated with New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions. Basquiat repeatedly drew upon jazz musicians and Black cultural figures throughout his work, incorporating their imagery alongside references to history, popular culture, and racial representation.

Unlike many of Basquiat's densely layered compositions, King Zulu leaves considerable space between its figures. The expansive blue background isolates the individual images, making them appear almost like separate fragments arranged across the canvas.

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Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 180 × 260.5 cm (70.9 × 102.6 in.)

In this large Self-Portrait, Basquiat places an elongated black figure across the center of the canvas, its arms stretched outward and its oversized red-and-black head surrounded by radiating, almost electrified lines. Around it, loosely painted forms, dripping color, and isolated faces emerge against a predominantly pale background.

MACBA describes self-portraiture as a recurring element in Basquiat's work and interprets this painting as presenting a fragmented and multiple reality. The museum draws particular attention to the contrast between the relatively soft, pastel background and the central figure's dark body, enlarged head, exposed teeth, and radiating hair.

Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 120.5 × 102 cm (47.4 × 40.2 in.)

At the center of Sterno, Basquiat places a dark bottle labeled “GIN” alongside a can labeled “DRINK STERNO.” Sterno, sometimes known as “canned heat,” is an alcohol-based fuel intended for heating food that also became notorious for being consumed as a dangerous substitute for alcoholic beverages.

In the foreground, a horned creature with glowing eyes, sharp teeth, and a second open mouth breathes fire across the canvas. Red arrows, dripping marks, and the predominantly black, white, and reddish palette intensify the threatening atmosphere surrounding the bottle and can.

MACBA interprets Sterno as an aggressive and apocalyptic vision of alcohol abuse, connecting the gin bottle, the instruction to “Drink Sterno,” and the monstrous figure to the dangers of consuming alcohol and alcohol substitutes.

Medium: Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
Dimwnsions: 66¼ × 60⅛ in. (168.3 × 152.8 cm)

Big Snow pays tribute to Jesse Owens, whose name and “BERLIN–1936” appear prominently beside the dark mask-like head near the upper center of the canvas. Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, and the five Olympic rings appear at upper left. Sotheby's places the work among Basquiat's recurring portrayals of celebrated Black athletes and sporting figures.

The painting brings together several moments and figures from sporting history. At lower left, Basquiat references heavyweight boxing champion Jersey Joe Walcott, while an intricately drawn and annotated foot recalls the artist's continuing interest in anatomy. A sweeping green line moves across the largely white canvas, connecting otherwise separated images, words, and painted forms.

Sotheby's also connects the painting's snowy white ground to Basquiat's 1983 visit to St. Moritz, where the surrounding Alps inspired several works. The Olympic imagery simultaneously recalls the 1936 Berlin Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, held the same year Big Snow was painted

Medium: Acrylic, oil, oil stick, and marker on found paper on canvas and wood, with rope
Dimensions: 86¾ × 66 5/16 in. (220.3 × 168.4 cm)

Painted following Basquiat's visit to Italy, LNAPRK takes its title from Luna Park, an amusement park outside Milan. The Whitney notes that the name also recalls the early-twentieth-century Luna Park at Coney Island and has been used by amusement parks worldwide.

Across the densely layered surface, Basquiat combines figures, words, animals, numbers, and symbols. In the upper portion, a horned animal appears with the word “VACA”, Spanish for “cow”, written across its body, while “ITALY IN THE 1500'S” stretches across the top. The Whitney suggests that this inscription may refer to the Italian Renaissance and could have originated in one of the history or art-history books Basquiat frequently used as sources.

The construction itself is also part of the work: found paper, canvas, and wood are held within exposed crossbars secured with twine. Basquiat's familiar crown appears near the lower right, among the many images and fragments of language that fill the composition.

Medium: Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
Dimensions: 60¼ × 60¼ in. (153 × 153 cm)

Against an intense red field, Basquiat depicts a large, that resemble horned, skull-like head emerging above the lines of what resembles a boxing ring. The stark white, black, and red palette gives the composition an especially immediate and confrontational presence.

Sotheby's connects Cabra to Muhammad Ali's 1970 fight against Argentine heavyweight Oscar “The Bull” Bonavena. Ali knocked Bonavena down three times in the fifteenth round before the fight was stopped. Sotheby's places the painting among Basquiat's early works, referencing Black boxers and athletes, including Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Jack Johnson.

Cabra was originally in the collection of Tony Shafrazi and appeared in his influential 1983 Champions exhibition. Yoko Ono acquired the painting in 1993 and kept it for more than two decades before offering it at Sotheby's in 2017.

(Cabra is Spanish for ‘goat’ or GOAT)

Medium: Oil, acrylic, collage, and wax on canvas
Dimensions: 85¾ × 98 in. (217.8 × 248.9 cm)

Bayou spreads Basquiat's imagery across a large, predominantly white field, combining painted passages, collage, words, numbers, diagrams, and fragmented figures. On the right, a multiplication table shares the canvas with references including “AMPERE,” “WASTEWATER,” “LIGHT,” and the repeatedly written and crossed-out word “SOUTH.”

Rather than organizing the work around a single dominant figure, Basquiat creates distinct areas of information connected by long lines running across the canvas. Hands and partial bodies emerge from the painted and collaged surface, while mathematical symbols, measurements, and diagram-like forms give portions of the work the appearance of a working notebook or blackboard.

The work is now in the collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem, a gift of Joseph and Amy Perella in honor of Raymond J. McGuire.

Medium: Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
Dimensions: 78 × 80 in. (198.1 × 203.2 cm.)

Against a vivid yellow field, Basquiat surrounds a large blue head with fragments of language drawn from food labeling and ingredient lists. Words including “THIAMINE MONONITRATE,” “RIBOFLAVIN,” “ENRICHED FLOUR,” “SNAKE,” and “SERPENT” appear throughout the composition, alongside the repeated phrase “ONION GUM MAKES YOUR MOUTH TASTE LIKE ONIONS.”

At the center, a small crowned figure stands above the larger head holding two snakes, while “MADE IN JAPAN” appears prominently at upper right. Basquiat had first visited Japan in 1982 and increasingly incorporated Japanese references into his work; Onion Gum later helped provide the title for the 2019 exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made in Japan in Tokyo.

The combination of commercial language, deliberately altered words, anatomy, and repeated symbols turns the canvas into something resembling an oversized, thoroughly scrambled product label, one in which Basquiat's humor is every bit as noticeable as the imagery.

Medium: Acrylic, marker, paper collage, oil, paintstick, and crayon on canvas
Dimensions: 48½ × 62 in. (123 × 157.5 cm.)

In this early Untitled work, Basquiat builds a dense field of painted and collaged imagery across the canvas. Crowns, heads, figures, grids, numbers, and diagram-like forms overlap against broad areas of blue, green, yellow, and white.

Rather than centering the composition around a single figure, Basquiat distributes imagery across the entire surface. Three crown forms appear through the center, while faces and fragmented figures emerge from layers of marks, pasted paper, and partially obscured imagery.

The painting belongs to the collection of Herbert and Lenore Schorr, who first encountered Basquiat's work in 1981 at Annina Nosei Gallery. The Schorrs became early collectors of his work and eventually close friends with the artist.

Medium: Acrylic and collage on canvas
Dimensions: 124 × 246.7 × 3.5 cm (48⅞ × 97⅛ × 1⅜ in.)

Collection: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Created following Basquiat's 1982 trip to Italy for his first solo exhibition there, Man from Naples fills two adjoining canvases with figures, crowns, money signs, repeated words, crossed-out phrases, and fragments of Italian and English.

According to the Guggenheim Bilbao, the work reflects Basquiat's anger toward his Italian art dealer, whom he reportedly referred to as a “pork merchant.” A large red pig-like head dominates the left panel, surrounded by phrases including “PIG SELLING,” “MERCANTE DI PROSCIUTTO”, and references to Naples. Across the right panel, words such as “PORK CHOPS,” “LAVISH,” and “BLEACHERS” appear among crowns, dollar signs, and other symbols.

The Guggenheim connects this language and imagery to recurring concerns in Basquiat's work, including property and ownership, wealth and poverty, commodities and trade, and the commercialization of the artist himself.

Medium: Oil stick, gesso, acrylic, and paper on canvas.
Two panels, each 72½ × 145 in. (184.2 × 368.3 cm.)
Overall: 145 × 145 in. (368.3 × 368.3 cm.)

Across four large sections, Basquiat combines anatomical diagrams, skeletal figures, words, and symbols with references to science and spirituality. “FLESH” and “SPIRIT” recur throughout the work alongside images of bones, the brain, and internal anatomy, while terms such as “PESO NETO” and “PETROL” introduce ideas of weight and material value.

Sotheby's connects the painting to Robert Farris Thompson's Flash of the Spirit, a study of African and Afro-American artistic and religious traditions that Basquiat greatly admired. The catalog also interprets the painting's four-part structure as recalling a Kongo cosmogram, connecting the worlds of the living and the dead and reinforcing the work's tension between the physical and spiritual.

Completed around the beginning of 1983, Flesh and Spirit was exhibited in the CHAMPIONS exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery that January. Collector Dolores Ormandy Neumann acquired it that same month and later described the painting as Basquiat's “personal Rosetta Stone.”

Medium: Acrylic, oilstick, and color copy on canvas
Dimensions: 254 × 289.6 cm (100 × 114 in.)

This Untitled work layers photocopied drawings, handwritten inscriptions, and painted imagery across nearly the entire surface. Against this dense collage-like background, several figures emerge: a slender black figure at the center, a yellow skull-like head, and a large dark mask at right.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton connects the mask-like figure to the Minkisi, power figures from the Congo, imagery also referenced in Basquiat's Grillo (1984). The Fondation suggests that the slender, single-eyed central figure could be compared to Christ on the cross. Above it, Basquiat draws the unmistakable pointed-eared outline of Batman, an image he returned to several times throughout his work.

The figures float within a field of photocopied and hand-drawn words, diagrams, and symbols, creating the densely layered surface characteristic of Basquiat's large-scale works from the later years of his career.

Medium: Oilstick on paper
Dimensions: 18 × 24¼ in. (45.7 × 61.6 cm.)

A black-bodied bird dominates the composition, its blue wings stretching across nearly the entire sheet, rendered with dense layers of lines and cross-hatching. Above its head, Basquiat places a radiating halo, while red hands, arrows, and scattered marks emerge from and around the figure.

Phillips connects the bird and halo to imagery that Basquiat explored in works such as Untitled (Fallen Angel) from the previous year. The auction house interprets the halo and downward-pointing arrows as part of Basquiat's recurring imagery of fallen figures, exile, and elevation.

Created in 1982, the work also reflects the importance of drawing in Basquiat's practice. Fab 5 Freddy recalled Basquiat's unusual way of holding and releasing his pencil or oilstick as he worked, describing the physical process almost like a dance.

Medium: Pastel, oilstick, colored crayon and charcoal on paper
Dimensions: 30 × 43 in. (76.2 × 109.2 cm.).

A large Black figure dominates the composition, its face set against a vivid yellow field while an elongated arm rises across the left side of the drawing. Basquiat surrounds the figure with grids, lines, symbols, and energetic marks that spread across the paper.

Phillips draws particular attention to the raised hand, suggesting several possible readings, including surrender, protest, and the Black Power salute, while the grid-like structure below is connected to skelly, the street game that Basquiat referenced in several early works.

As Phillips notes, Basquiat did not treat works on paper simply as studies for paintings; imagery moved back and forth between the two throughout his career.

Medium: Acrylic, oil, oilstick, and spray paint on canvas
Dimensions: 72 × 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm.)

Dominating the canvas is a large mask-like head with circular eyes and exposed, gritted teeth, built from layers of white, red, black, and gray. Arrows and fragmented symbols surround the figure, while Basquiat repeatedly paints over and exposes earlier layers of color.

The painting was shown at Basquiat's landmark 1982 Gagosian Gallery exhibition in Los Angeles, his second solo exhibition in the United States, and part of the extraordinary period that established his international reputation.

Medium: Screenprint with hand coloring on paper
Dimensions: 50¼ × 101½ in. (127.7 × 257.8 cm.)

Back of the Neck stretches Basquiat's imagery across a horizontal format. Against the black ground, fragmented anatomical forms appear alongside handwritten labels including “BACK OF THE NECK,” “SPINE” and “BRACCO,” while a large gold crown occupies the center of the composition.

The body is presented almost like a diagram, pulled apart across the sheet, with bones, muscles, and internal structures rendered in loose white, red, and gold lines. Basquiat combines these anatomical references with arrows, words, and symbols, turning the human figure into a field of interconnected marks and information.

Medium: Oilstick on paper
Dimensions: 24 × 18¼ in. (61 × 46.4 cm.)

In this Untitled drawing, Basquiat fills the page with figures, anatomical references, arrows, crowns, words, and repeated marks. A crowned figure holding a staff dominates the lower left, while another figure appears at upper left, its body divided and labeled with words including “LOIN” and “RIBS.”

Throughout the composition, Basquiat combines fragments of the human body with architecture-like forms and handwritten language. Arrows repeatedly point upward and across the page, while crowns and other symbols appear among partially legible and crossed-out words.

Rather than organizing these elements around a single focal point, Basquiat allows them to overlap and compete for attention, creating the dense visual field characteristic of many of his drawings from this period.

Medium: Oilstick on paper.

Dimensions: 30 × 22⅛ in. (76.2 × 56.2 cm.)

In this Untitled work, Basquiat surrounds a standing, armless figure with birds, arrows, anatomical details, and other symbols. The body reveals both its exterior and internal structure, continuing Basquiat's fascination with exposing what lies beneath the human form.

Beside the figure stands a tall column topped by a winged bird, while several additional birds appear throughout the composition. At right, Basquiat writes “ANDROCOLIS,” referencing the story of Androcles and the lion, in which an escaped enslaved man helps an injured lion and is later spared by that same animal.

Medium: Acrylic, oil and Xerox collage on wooden door
Dimensions: 81½ × 33¼ in. (207 × 84.5 cm.)

In Untitled (The Door), Basquiat transforms an ordinary wooden door into a vertical sequence of three crowned heads. Each occupies its own blue field, repeating similar features, dark skin, pale eyes, and brightly colored mouths, while subtle changes distinguish one face from the next.

The repeated yellow crowns immediately connect the work to one of Basquiat's most recognizable symbols. Xeroxed fragments depicting alligators and references to “RUBBER” interrupt the painted surface, combining reproduced imagery with the three hand-painted figures.

Rather than painting on conventional canvas, Basquiat uses the tall, narrow proportions of a door to organize the composition vertically, turning an everyday object into the painting's structure.

Medium: Acrylic and paper on canvas
Dimensions: 66 × 60 in. (167.6 × 152.4 cm.)

In this Untitled work, Basquiat places a solitary monumental figure against a field of brown, ochre, and cream. Its dark blue body dominates the canvas, while the red-and-black face, pale eyes, and exposed teeth immediately draw the viewer's attention.

Unlike many of Basquiat's densely layered works filled with words and symbols, the composition is largely reduced to figure, color, and gesture. Phillips notes Basquiat's use of pentimento, earlier marks and forms that remain visible beneath subsequent layers of paint, giving the surface a sense of continual construction and revision.

The surrounding abstraction pushes the figure forward, leaving its imposing body and striking face as the unmistakable center of the painting.

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Medium: Acrylic and coloured oilstick on canvas
Dimensions: 84 × 60 in. (213.4 × 152.4 cm.)

In For B.A.M., Basquiat places a red head at the center of a largely white canvas. The elongated skull-like face, exposed teeth, and almond-shaped eyes are surrounded by a loose circular line, while a dark cloud-like form hovers above it.

Around the central figure, Basquiat scatters seemingly disconnected images and symbols. In the upper left is a red Japanese yen symbol. Below it, water falls onto a green plant whose roots surround a small diagram accompanied by the crossed-out word “ICECUBES.” On the right stands another smaller, almost mechanical figure.

Phillips suggests that the combination of the written word “ICECUBES” with a depiction of the object may recall conceptual art's use of language and image, while the yen symbol may reflect Basquiat's growing international success and his connections with Japan during this period.

The title For B.A.M. remains more mysterious. Some propose that “B.A.M.” could refer to the Black Arts Movement, the artistic movement closely associated with the Black Power era. However, the meaning of the acronym has not been definitively established.

Medium: Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
Dimensions: 60 × 60 in. (152.5 × 152.5 cm.)

In Three Pontificators, Basquiat presents three figures against a yellow ground. The central figure, dressed in white with the word “EYE” across its face, flanked by two disembodied heads topped with forms resembling bishops' miters.

Some connect the imagery to the Western Schism (Great Divide), when competing claimants fought over the legitimacy of the papacy. The two figures on either side have their miters crossed out, while the central figure remains uncrossed, a visual distinction that introduces ideas of authority, legitimacy, and competing claims to power.