Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art Imitates Life Imitates Art

Basquiat was born to Puerto Rican and Haitian parents in New York. Basquiat grew up in a middle class family in a fairly nice part of Brooklyn, even though he tried to hide this fact later in his life. The rest of Jean-Michel’s family consisted of two younger sisters. Even at an early age, Jean-Michel drawings and paintings drew attention from his parents. He attended private school until fourth grade in which most of the other children were white. When he was seven, Jean-Michel was hit by a car and had to have his spleen removed. While in the hospital, he received a book titled Gray’s Anatomy that his mother gave him . He was very interested in this book and i

At age 12, Basquiat moved with his father to Puerto Rico for a short period of time. The two eventually returned to Brooklyn. At age 15, Jean-Michel ran away from home after being caught smoking pot by his father. Jean-Michel stayed at a boy’s home and later in a Jewish hippie commune . Both didn’t last very long and Jean-Michel ended up sleeping on park benches in Washington Square Park. Here he met many people that would further introduce him to the world of drugs. His father eventually caught up with him and had the police return Jean-Michel to his care. By this time, Basquiat had a serious problem with marijuana and LSD, and also occasionally used heroin. Jean-Michel was enrolled in another high school, named City-As-School . It was more laid back than his previous schools and Jean-Michel took advantage of it. The students were given subway tokens to visit museums and other various important places, but Basquiat and his friends sold the tokens to buy drugs. While enrolled in City-As-School, Jean-Michel met Al Diaz. Diaz and Jean-Michel together began writing cryptic messages around town signing the name SAMO© . Basquiat and Diaz wrote many interesting quotes around Manhattan while using various drugs, such as marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms. After receiving attention from the media for their writings, Diaz and Jean-Michel had a difference of opinion about remaining anonymous and the two went their separate ways.

After SAMO© “died”, Jean-Michel left home and began his formal art career. He began selling art on the streets in the form of T-shirts and postcards. Around 1980, Jean-Michel’s work began to attract attention from the art world, particularly after a group of artists from the punk and graffiti underground held the "Times Square Show" in an abandoned

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