Over the past month we have been gearing up for this year’s Brooklyn Artists Ball by spotlighting pa

Over the past month we have been gearing up for this year’s Brooklyn Artists Ball by spotlighting participating artists and celebrating our retiring director, Arnold Lehman by highlighting works acquired during his tenure and sharing some of our favorite #ArnoldMemories. In recognition of his visionary leadership and transformation of the Museum and his unwavering support of Brooklyn’s art community, Lehman will be presented with the Augustus Graham Medal. In addition, three acclaimed contemporary artists who have had major exhibitions at the Museum during Lehman’s tenure will be honored with the Asher B. Durand Award: Jean-Michel Basquiat was born and raised in Brooklyn, the son of a Haitian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. At an early age, he showed a precocious talent for drawing, and his mother enrolled him as a Junior Member of the Brooklyn Museum when he was six. Basquiat first gained notoriety as a teenage graffiti poet and musician. By 1981, at the age of twenty, he had turned to spraying graffiti on the walls of buildings in Lower Manhattan to selling paintings in SoHo Galleries, rapidly becoming one of the most accomplished artists of his generation. Astute collectors began buying his art, and his gallery shows sold out. Critics noted the originality of his work, its emotional depth, unique iconography, and formal strengths in color, composition, and drawing. By 1985, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine as the epitome of the hot, young artist in a booming market. Another BKM collection artist, Basquiat was also the subject of a large 2005 exhibition at the Museum. You can now explore the distinct interplay of text and images in Basquiat’s art in the current exhibition, Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks. The Basquiat family will be accepting this award on the artist’s behalf. -- source link

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