Sotheby's to Auction 20 Unseen Keith Haring Works
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Sotheby's is selling 20 Keith Haring works from the personal collection of childhood friend Kermit Oswald in two New York sales on 14 and 15 May, with many items never previously displayed publicly.
- The marquee lot is a 1985 self-portrait—one of only six Haring ever painted on canvas, depicting his face on a sphinx body—estimated at $3 million to $5 million.
- A hand-painted yellow crib Haring decorated with dachshunds and figures of Oswald and his wife in 1986 is estimated at $250,000 to $350,000, with dealer Jeffrey Deitch saying he hopes a young family buys it so it ends up in a nursery.
- Untitled early works on paper from the late 1970s and early 1980s used cut-up newspapers and Xeroxed clippings influenced by William Burroughs; Oswald says Haring left them untitled so viewers would cross-reference the date with New York Post or New York Times headlines.
- Oswald, who met Haring at age 5 in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and built his studio's workshop, said Haring asked him to tell Haring's parents he was HIV positive; Haring died of AIDS-related complications on 16 February 1990 at 31.
- Sotheby's specialist Kathleen Hart told the paper the Haring market remains 'very strong' with a 'premium for objects that are fresh,' while Oswald frames himself as a custodian rather than owner: 'You don't own art, you are just a custodian of it.'
Why it matters: This is the first major auction of Haring works drawn from a single private collection tied to his closest personal relationship, and it introduces never-seen material—including an early staircase motif wood relief and the only known hand-painted crib by the artist—into a market Sotheby's says remains robust 35 years after his death, potentially setting benchmarks for personal, non-iconic Haring objects.
