Artist Spotlight: Keith Haring
- yartlondon
- Jul 8, 2025
- 2 min read
"Art is for everybody."
Keith Haring’s art is instantly recognisable, from his radiant babies and barking dogs to his dancing figures pulsing with movement and energy. With bold lines, vibrant colours, and a strong visual language, Haring turned public spaces into powerful platforms for connection, activism, and joy.
Emerging from the New York City subway system in the early 1980s, Haring began drawing with white chalk on empty black advertising panels. His “Subway Drawings” brought art directly to the commuters, kids, passersby, transforming everyday transit into an experience. Unlike the exclusivity of galleries and museums, Haring’s work was unfiltered, immediate, and deeply democratic.
While Haring’s style is playful and cartoon-like, his work tackled serious themes such as: apartheid, AIDS, nuclear disarmament, drug addiction, and LGBTQ+ rights. Through murals, posters, and public installations, he used art not just to reflect the world, but to change it, believing in its power to inform, provoke, and unite.
In 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a storefront in SoHo where people could purchase gifts and homeware. Criticised by some for “commercialising” his work, Haring saw it differently, as a way of increasing accessibility by breaking down the barriers between art and audience. In his words, “The public has a right to art.”
Diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, Haring responded with even greater urgency, establishing the Keith Haring Foundation to support children’s programs and AIDS-related education. He died just two years later, at the age of 31, but in his brief career, he left an large mark on the art world.
Today, Haring’s work lives on in public spaces and permanent collections across the world from the Berlin Wall to the Museum of Modern Art. More than three decades after his death, his vibrant figures still seem alive, reminding us that art is for living.
Available to purchase from Clifton Gallery
Montreux Jazz Festival (Set Of Three)
Details: Full set of three colour screenprints printed on thick paper
1983 Published by Abin Uldry, Bern Signed and dated within the plate Edition of 2,000 100 x 70 cm Unframed and stored flat.
Dancers
Details: Colour offset lithograph on wove paper 1986 92.5 x 70.5 cm Keith Haring created this design for Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris in 1986 Framed
Untitled, Smiley Face
Details: Colour offset lithograph on wove paper 1981 90.5 x 60.5 cm Published by Neues publishing, New York Framed
Moutin Rothschild
Details: Lithograph 1988 Haring's inscribed signature in gold ink and Phillipine de Rothschild’s signature stamp in red ink Published by Chateau Mouton Rothschild in 1988. 52 x 40 cm Unframed and stored flat
Click below to view our full Keith Haring collection. For more details or to enquire about any of the works featured, please get in touch.
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