Keith Allen Haring, famous for redefining Art for the 20^th century, was an American artist and social activist who started a New York City street culture depicting a visual language expressed through his graffiti and known for his activism in promoting AIDS awareness. Let us know more about the bold artist who was also arrested several times on vandalism grounds.

1. Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Pennsylvania and died when he was 31 on February 16, 1990 in New York, from AIDS-related complications.
2. Haring’s father Allen Haring, was an engineer and an amateur cartoonist. He then became Haring’s influence for his interest in drawings. They together used to spend time producing creative drawings.
3. He once said, “My father made cartoons. Since I was little, I had been doing cartoons, creating characters and stories.”
4. His other influences have been Walt Disney cartoons, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, and the Looney Tunes characters in The Bugs Bunny Show.
5. He came to limelight with his chalk drawings in subway around 1980. One day, he started drawing his thoughts on a black matte unused paper in a subway station. This provoked him, and he further continued doing this between 1980 and 1985.
6. On days, he used to create upto 40 subway graffiti, all based on different topics like birth-death, war, sexuality and politics. Soon they became a street culture and attracted a lot of New York
7. Haring’s first solo exhibition was in 1981, at the Westbeth Painters Space (New York). In the same year, he also contributed to the New York New Wave display. He was also invited to paint on the Berlin Wall.
8. He got an opportunity to display his work at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. Besides this, he also used to design backdrops and sets for several theatres and clubs. Besides this, brands like Absolut vodka and Swatch also used his creativity for their individual advertising campaigns.
9. In 1986, he opened his retail store named Pop Shop, also functional today, selling products like clothes, posters, holiday cards, stationery, mugs, magnets, books, accessories and stuff for babies. The original store located in Soho was initially designed with his creation of white mural.
10. He was also involved in charity and more than 50 of his creations were used for charity purposes. His creation – sculpture of Blue Curling Dog was put to display at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (Manhattan).
11. In 1989, Keith Haring Foundation was founded with an aim to provide assistance to AIDS organizations and other children welfare programs. He also used to organize drawing workshops for kids across NY and Europe.
12. He started a Monkees fan club. He was a fan of Davy Jones and since his teen years, used to buy magazines to cut out pictures of him and used them to make collages.
13. His three of the famous murals were one created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, the other one placed at the Necker Children’s Hospital (Paris) and the third one situated at the Carmine Recreation Centre’s pool (Lower Manhattan).
14. Once he said in an interview that in his teen years, he always wanted to become a hippie and so has experimented with all types of drugs. His 1986 famous mural “Crack Is Wack” was also meant to create awareness on the usage of Crack, a type of cocaine.
15. He also once designed a jacket for Madonna which she wore during a performance on the TV dance program “Solid Gold”.
16. When on his death bed, the last drawing he drew was the “Radiant Baby”, his most iconic symbol. He was a gay and was quite open about the fact.
17. Still after his death, his work is honored worldwide and is still exhibited by esteemed museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (France) and the Museum of Modern Art (New York City).
18. After his death, Madonna affirmed the first New York date of her Blond Ambition World Tour – a profit concert to celebrate Haring’s life. The money raised from the ticket sales was donated to AIDS charities.