1982 Keith Haring Reproduction Art Exhibition Poster. 1982 Keith Haring Danish Museum Exhibition Print. 2018 limited reproduction print run for the museums 60th Anniversary. Printed on white matte paper. Excellent condition.

Size: 16.5”H x 23.5”W.

Condition: Excellent condition.

About the Artist - Keith Haring 

Keith Haring was born in 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Kutztown, where he developed an early love of drawing partly inspired by cartoons and his father's amateur illustrations. After a brief stint at a commercial art school, he moved to New York City in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts, where he found himself immersed in the East Village's vibrant downtown art and club scene alongside figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Andy Warhol. It was here that Haring began developing his signature visual vocabulary, including bold outlined figures, radiant babies, barking dogs, and dancing bodies, drawing influence from graffiti, comic strips, and tribal and hieroglyphic art.

Haring's defining gesture as an artist was his decision to take his work directly into public space. Starting around 1980, he covered blank advertising panels in New York's subway stations with chalk drawings, creating thousands of pieces over several years that made his work some of the most visible and recognizable in the city, and got him arrested more than once for what authorities considered vandalism. As his fame grew, he leaned further into accessibility, opening the Pop Shop in 1986 to sell affordable t-shirts, posters, and toys bearing his imagery. This move drew sharp criticism from parts of the art establishment, who accused him of cheapening his work and "selling out," even as Haring argued he was deliberately rejecting elitist gallery culture in favor of art for everyone. His work also grew more explicit and political over time, incorporating frank depictions of sex, drug use, and apartheid, and his open, prolific gay sexuality and embrace of the era's hedonistic club culture were themselves subjects of public fascination and judgment.

In 1988, Haring was diagnosed with AIDS, and rather than retreat, he used his remaining time and platform to create urgent, large-scale works raising awareness about the epidemic, a notably bold move at a time when AIDS carried enormous stigma and was barely discussed in mainstream culture. He also established the Keith Haring Foundation to fund AIDS organizations and children's programs, cementing activism as part of his legacy alongside his art. He died in February 1990 at just 31 years old. In the decades since, his estate and foundation have been involved in disputes over authentication and the licensing of his imagery, and debates continue among critics about how much of his style drew directly from the graffiti writers and street artists who preceded him without receiving the same recognition or financial reward.