Your ultimate guide to the life and legacy of Keith Haring

From the Radiant Baby emblazoned on the walls of the New York subway to his Crack is Wack mural in Harlem, the work of late American artist Keith Haring is joyously irreverent and instantly recognisable. Although he passed away at the age of 31, shortly after being diagnosed with AIDS in 1990, Haring is remembered — alongside contemporaries Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat — as one of the formative visual artists of ‘80s New York, whose practice traversed pop and graffiti art, and visual activism. His legacy lives on in the public artworks he created around the world, memorable collaborations with everyone from Vivienne Westwood to David Bowie, and the work of the Keith Haring Foundation, which funds non-profit organisations to educate disadvantaged youth about HIV and AIDS. As a major new exhibition opens at Tate Liverpool, marking the first solo exhibition of his work in the UK, we have compiled a guide to everything you need to know about the life and work of this era-defining artist, radical visionary and fearless activist.

His artistic influences include the Looney Tunes and Ancient Egypt

While his works feature similar visual tropes and an instantly recognisable style, the influences behind them are far-reaching, incorporating elements of cartoon drawing with motifs and styles from different world cultures such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Aboriginal drawings. His father, an amateur cartoonist, taught him to draw and instilled in him an interest in the works of figures such as Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss. From barking dogs to dancing figures, Haring’s works continued to employ an element of cartoonish surrealism that allowed for him to deal with serious subject matters in a light-hearted way that connected with a wide audience. Unlike, for example, Andy Warhol, who depicted humorous objects in a serious way to comment on themes such as consumerism, Haring explored a visual communication of political topics ranging from Apartheid to the AIDS epidemic in a playful way that transcended social barriers, sparked conversation and promoted an atmosphere of inclusivity.

He essentially created a visual language

After a teenagehood punctuated by experiences with the Jesus Movement and a roadtrip selling handmade T-shirts featuring anti-Nixon and Grateful Dead slogans, Haring began studying commercial art at Pittsburgh’s Ivy School of Professional Art before changing course and moving to New York where he studied painting at the School of Visual Arts. It was here that he first studied semiotics, which stimulated his desire to create visual art that could communicate messages. His aesthetic is defined by bold, block lines and stylised totemic figures, all depicted in a bright primary colour pallette and interlocking patterns and motifs. With regard to seeing his art as a form of language, Haring said: “I am intrigued with the shapes people choose as their symbols to create a language. There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines that becomes a symbol. This is common to all languages, all people, all times.”

He was arrested for graffiti on the subway

Some of Haring’s earliest public works, such as the famous Radiant Baby, were created on the walls of the New York City subway. When the artist noticed that advertising spaces were being left bare and covered with matte black paper, he took advantage of the empty canvases and drew on them in white chalk. Whilst the designs were simple, Haring would sketch dozens of them each day, and his recurring patterns and characters quickly caught the attention of fellow passengers. But while passers-by were generally curious and positive about his artworks — the works eventually became so popular that people would steal and sell them -— the subway drawings did lead to him being arrested on multiple occasions and charged for vandalism.

“Art is for everybody”

Haring was adamant about having his works remain available to the public and not swallowed up into the elitist world of curators and collectors. As his work became more desirable and expensive, they also began to disappear from the subway walls and become less accessible, which motivated the creation of his Pop Shop in 1986. The shop, which sold T-shirts, merchandise and other novelty items, was intended to be a place that would attract a similarly diverse audience as the subway commuters, and ensure that the art itself was still making its intended statement beyond the politics of the art market. To those who suggested he was selling out, Haring retorted, “If commercialisation is putting my art on a shirt so that a kid who can’t afford a $30,000 painting can buy one, then I’m all for it.”

He moved in very cool circles

Keith Haring had a notably large and well-connected social circle. Alongside fellow artists such as Kenny Scharf and graffiti artist Carlos Rodriguez, Haring was also friends with the likes of Madonna — he invited Warhol as his plus one to her 1985 wedding — and Grace Jones, whose body he painted in geometrical tribal patterns for performances. He frequented clubs such as Area and Club 57, where he also performed poetry readings and staged spontaneous art exhibitions.

He was a tireless campaigner against the oppression of minorities

As much as Haring was a respected and celebrated visual artist, he was also a fervent and committed political activist, who saw art not only as a right for everyone to enjoy, but also as a means of spreading messages about global politics and social issues. Many of his artworks, such as Ignorance = Fear, display a joyful expression of pride in his own homosexuality and an active promotion of safe sex at a time when the social climate in ‘80s America was one that was still outwardly homophobic. He also created designs that made powerful statements on issues such as Apartheid, income equality, climate change, and even made some eerily prophetic warnings about the dangers of our increasingly addictive relationship to technology such as an untitled work from 1983 that depicts a baton-wielding figure riding a mutant creature with a television for a head. The television displays a red figure being dragged out of screen by a giant hand as the creature tramples across similar helpless red outlines.

He posthumously bid Yoko Ono take his ashes to Paris… or so legend has it

In 2008, filmmaker Christina Clausen made a documentary entitled The Universe of Keith Haring, featuring archival footage alongside interviews with friends and admirers. One of the most interesting tidbits of insider information came from Yoko Ono, who told Clausen that Haring’s spirit had come to her at his funeral and asked her to take his ashes to Paris, a city that had been a source of inspiration for him ever since he told his parents that he wanted to move to France to become an artist at the age of 10. Ono claimed that she duly granted her friend his final wish, bringing his remaining ashes to the city of light in a safe box and scattering them near the Place Vendôme.

Keith Haring runs through to 10 November at Tate Liverpool.