Keith Haring Pop Shop III (Plate 2), 1989 is the second silkscreen print in the artist’s Pop Shop III portfolio of 1989. This work captures Haring’s sense of humor and affinity for whimsical and surreal compositions. In classic Haring style, the artist uses thick black lines to outline a pair of scissors cutting a yellow ribbon. The handles of the tool are formed by human like figures creating the finger holes with their arms held above their head. Haring consistently used human body figures to portray a multitude of ideas, some realistic, others unnatural. Haring created his own simple visual language with these figures. They remain easily understood and processed to anyone’s eye, reminding the viewer of childlike doodles. Haring wanted to make art more accessible to the public and one of the ways he did this was by sticking to his recognizable visual style.

Haring created multiple Pop Shop portfolios during the span of his career, and derived the name from his original Pop Shop that he opened in a retail space in downtown New York in 1986. This shop was opened with the intention of making the artist’s work accessible to the general public, and this accessibility is an explicitly Pop sentiment.

Keith Haring’s Pop Shop III (Plate 2), 1987 is part of a portfolio of four screenprints in the artist’s Pop Shop III portfolio of 1987. This body of work depicts some of the artist’s iconic figures in a limited palette of red, blue, yellow, black and grey. Also featured in this portfolio are Pop Shop III (Plate 1), Pop Shop III (Plate 3) and Pop Shop III (Plate 4).

Created in 1988, 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 200 in pencil in the center right image.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:

Keith Haring Pop Shop III (Plate 2), from the Pop Shop III Portfolio, 1989 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. 145 and illustrated on pg. 144 b.

2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:

Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Keith Haring Pop Shop III (Plate 2), from the Pop Shop III Portfolio, 1989 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.