Featuring foldouts, candid photographs, and full-page color installation shots, this beautiful new book celebrates the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat over his brief but meteoric career. Dozens of historical photographs, both black-and-white and color, connect the text with the close to sixty color plates, providing invaluable insight into the life and work of this seminal artist. Art historian Robert Farris Thompson delivers a detailed analysis of some of Basquiat’s most iconic paintings, situating them within the artist’s own oeuvre, as well as the larger landscape of twentieth-century art. Rounding out this stunning volume, the late Rene Ricard provides a rare but accurate glimpse into the private world of Basquiat, recounting their sometimes fraught friendship, from their first meeting in 1981 to Basquiat’s death in 1988.

Robert Farris Thompson is the Colonel John Trumbull Professor at Yale University’s History of Art Department. He specializes in African and African-American art and has published extensively on the topic. Rene Ricard was an artist, poet, and art critic credited with launching the career of Jean-Michel Basquiat in a 1981 issue of Artforum. He was a fixture of New York’s art world from his arrival there in 1965 to his death in 2014.