polity united states reagan eraconcept:era contemporary

Untitled (Skull)

Acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat, created January 1982. Skull/head motif on a turquoise-blue ground with Basquiat's three-pointed crown and text fragments. One of the most celebrated works of the Neo-Expressionist movement and of the Black American avant-garde. Sold at Sotheby's New York, 18 May 2017 (lot 24) for $110,487,500 — a record for an American artist and the first work by a Black artist to exceed $100 million at auction.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor the Neo-Expressionism / African American contemporary art cluster with Basquiat's Untitled (Skull) — the highest-priced work by a Black artist at auction and an iconic early canvas.

Notes

·Production year confirmed as 1982 (created January 1982) from the Sotheby's catalogue N09761, lot 24. The node was originally seeded with 1981 — this was an error corrected on 2026-04-24 via web research against primary auction catalogue.
·Dimensions confirmed as 183.2 × 173 cm (72 1/8 × 68 1/8 in) from Sotheby's catalogue. Prior node had incorrect dimensions 207.6 × 175.9 cm.
·Lot number confirmed as 24 (not 8 as previously recorded in the transaction node — corrected 2026-04-24).
·The 2017 buyer, Yusaku Maezawa, announced the purchase on Instagram, bringing a new social-media dimension to the auction record.
·The work is associated with the broader 1980s Neo-Expressionist moment but is also understood as exceeding it — Basquiat's imagery draws on a specifically African American intellectual and material heritage that has no direct European counterpart in the movement.