Bird on Money - Jean-Michel Basquiat
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Description
A 1981 Neo-expressionist work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, featuring a central avian figure surrounded by cryptic text and gestural markings.
Bird on Money, executed in 1981, captures the raw energy and visual language characteristic of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The composition features a central avian figure rendered in a skeletal, almost primitive manner, surrounded by a dense network of symbols, text, and gestural marks. Basquiat employs a palette dominated by ochre, deep blue, and black, creating a stark contrast that draws the eye across the canvas. The work incorporates various textual elements, including the phrase 'PARA MORIR' and 'GREEN WOOD', which function as both visual components and cryptic narrative fragments. These inscriptions reflect the artist's interest in the intersection of street culture, historical critique, and personal iconography. The application of paint is varied, ranging from broad, flat fields of colour to frantic, linear oilstick markings that suggest a sense of urgency. Basquiat's approach to the canvas is non-hierarchical. He treats the entire surface as a space for information, where symbols of commerce, nature, and mortality coexist. The bird, often a recurring motif in his work, is presented here as a fragmented entity, stripped of naturalistic detail and reduced to its essential form. The surrounding marks, including repeated circles and geometric shapes, create a rhythmic quality that mimics the chaotic pace of urban life. This piece demonstrates the artist's ability to synthesise disparate influences, from graffiti to classical painting, into a cohesive visual statement. The work remains a primary example of his transition from the street-based pseudonym SAMO to the gallery-focused practice that defined his career in the early 1980s.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
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- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Bird on Money - Jean-Michel Basquiat
Artist Biography
Jean Michel Basquiat
He had no formal art training. He dropped out of school at seventeen and slept on park benches and friends' floors. He sold hand-painted postcards and t-shirts. He gate-crashed a restaurant where the critic Henry Geldzahler was eating with Andy Warhol and handed them a postcard. Warhol bought one. The art world opened.
By twenty-one he was showing in galleries. By twenty-two he was the youngest artist ever invited to Documenta in Kassel. The paintings are dense, layered, furious: text fragments, anatomical drawings, crown symbols, crossed-out words, references to Black history, jazz, boxing, anatomy textbooks, and street signage. They look unplanned but they are not. The crossed-out words are deliberate. He wanted you to read them, then register the erasure.
He and Warhol collaborated on a series of paintings in 1984 and 1985. The relationship was complicated by the art market's tendency to treat Basquiat as Warhol's protege rather than his peer, and by the fact that Warhol, older and more established, got better reviews for the joint work. Basquiat pulled away.
He died of a heroin overdose in 1988, at twenty-seven. His paintings now sell for over 100 million dollars. He would have found that both satisfying and absurd.
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