Keith Haring Growing (Plate 3), 1988 is the third installment of the artist’s Growing Portfolio of 1988. In this work, the artist renders a large figure in black with a blue contour across a bright red background. These saturated colors and the bold lines that are staples of Haring’s oeuvre are emphasized by screen printing, a method of printing that involves transferring ink through a treated mesh onto a surface. The figure’s legs stretch out from the bottom center of the composition and extend to the edges of the right and left sides of the image. From the figure’s neck stems a torso of another figure, and from its abdomen grow two more bodies on either side. Both of these figures’ chests extrude and serve as the bottom form’s arms. In the two abdomens of the gargantuan figure, the artist has illustrated yellow orbs which serve to draw the viewers eye into the center of the composition. The stylization of this work is reminiscent of ancient hieroglyphs; in creating this work, Haring advertises his own visual language by using the visual language of the ancient Egyptians.

Keith Haring’s Growing (Plate 3), 1988 is part of a portfolio of five screenprints in the artist’s Lucky Strike portfolio of 1987. This body of work depicts fragments of figures rendered in the artist’s signature style dismantled and reconstructed to create enormous singular forms that dominate their compositions. Also featured in this portfolio are Growing (Plate 1), Growing (Plate 2),  Growing (Plate 4), and Growing (Plate 5).

Created in 1987, this silkscreen is hand-signed by Keith Haring (Reading, 1958 – New York, 1990) in pencil in the center right image and numbered from the edition of 80 in pencil in the center right image.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Keith Haring Growing (Plate 3), from the Growing Portfolio, 1988 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1. Klaus Littman. Keith Haring: Editions on Paper 1982-1990, The Complete Printed Works. Hatje Cantz Publishers: New York, 1993. Listed on pg. 88 and illustrated on pg. 90 b.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Keith Haring Growing (Plate 3), from the Growing Portfolio, 1988 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.