Attributed to Jean Michel Basquiat, private collection, no coa medium: mixed media measurements:22"wX28"h no frame, mint condition Biography: Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, the second of four children to Matilde Basquiat (née Andrades, 1934–2008) and Gérard Basquiat (1930–2013). He had an older brother, Max, who died shortly before his birth, and two younger sisters, Lisane (b. 1964) and Jeanine (b. 1967). His father was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and his mother was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. He was raised Catholic. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in documentary in Kassel. At 22, he was one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his artwork in 1992.Basquiat's art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique. He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the Black community, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism. His visual poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle.