Keith Haring Pop Shop VI (Plate 3), 1989 is the third print in the artist’s Pop Shop V portfolio of 1989. The whimsical composition focuses on five human like figures with their arms raised high above their hands. The bodies are connected below the waist and are arranged to mimic a hand, with the four upright figures as the four fingers and the bent body as the thumb. The simple yet strange design reminds the viewer of outlandish doodles created by children. Haring was fascinated by Egyptian hieroglyphs and strived to create his own simple visual language. He used this language to engage with ideas of creation, birth, violence, sex, death and destruction. Haring often delved into pertinent social problems that were troubling the world at the time in his art. He would use his simple designs to help viewers digest his commentary and get them thinking about the world around them. 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. Today, Haring is still known as an artist who was passionate about access to art and art education.

Keith Haring’s Pop Shop VI (Plate 3), 1989 is part of a portfolio of four screenprints in the artist’s Pop Shop IV portfolio of 1989. This body of work depicts some of the artist’s iconic figures in a limited palette of black, yellow, blue and orange. Also featured in this portfolio are Pop Shop VI (Plate 1), Pop Shop VI (Plate 2) and Pop Shop VI (Plate 4).

Created in 1989, this work is signed and numbered out of the edition of 200 in pencil by Julia Gruen (Executor for the Keith Haring Estate) on a stamped Certificate of Authenticity on the reverse (there were also 25 artist's proofs), published by the artist (with an iguana blindstamp).

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Keith Haring Pop Shop VI (Plate 3), from the Pop Shop VI 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.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Keith Haring Pop Shop VI (Plate 3), from the Pop Shop VI Portfolio, 1989 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.