Retrospect

One sheet, a whole vocabulary

Retrospect is a screenprint Keith Haring made in 1989. The Keith Haring Foundation lists it as a silkscreen measuring 46 by 82 inches (117 by 208 cm) in an edition of 75. Descriptions written for its sales add seven artist's proofs, and catalogue it in Klaus Littmann's book of Haring's editions on paper at pages 120-121.

The print is laid out like a comic strip: a grid of 24 brightly colored frames, each drawn in Haring's thick black outline. One description of the work calls it an edited survey of his Pop Shop I-VI print series, with the barking dog, the dog man, the angel and the radiant baby among the motifs. The same description notes that several images in the grid do not appear in the earlier Pop Shop prints and were presumably meant for another series that was never made.

The Foundation also catalogs a second 1989 silkscreen titled Retrospect, the same 46 by 82 inches, in an edition of 10. That sheet carries a different catalogue page reference in dealer listings (Littmann pp. 118-119). This page is about the edition of 75.

Keith Haring

Haring was born on May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Kutztown, learning basic cartooning from his father. After two semesters at a commercial art school in Pittsburgh he moved to New York in 1978 and enrolled at the School of Visual Arts, where he fell in with Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the downtown club and graffiti scene.

In 1980 he began drawing in white chalk on the blank black paper panels that covered unused advertising frames in the subway. Between 1980 and 1985 he made hundreds of these drawings, sometimes as many as forty in a day, and called the subway his 'laboratory.' His SoHo gallery debut came in 1982, and the same period brought Documenta 7, the Sao Paulo Biennial and the Whitney Biennial.

In April 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo, selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets with his images. Parts of the art world criticized the shop; Haring saw it as an extension of his work and a way to make his images cheap and widely available. The Pop Shop prints, sold at modest prices, are the direct source for much of the imagery in Retrospect.

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In 1989, the year of Retrospect, he set up the Keith Haring Foundation to fund AIDS organizations and children's programs. He died of AIDS-related complications on February 16, 1990, at 31.

Summing up in 1989

Retrospect was made while Haring was ill, and he knew it. In a Rolling Stone interview published August 10, 1989, he said: 'The thing about all the projects I am working on now... is that there is a certain sense of summing up in them. Everything I do now is a chance to put a crown on the whole thing.' He went on: 'when you get to the end of the story, you have to start pointing all the things toward one thing.'

The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Japan, which owns an impression, places the print against a year of upheaval: the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the protests in Tiananmen Square and the close of the Reagan years in the United States. It calls Retrospect a summation of Haring's recurring themes and points to its nod to the Pop Shop, his project to put art within reach of the public.

Seen that way, the title is literal. It is a retrospective exhibition compressed onto a single sheet of paper, made by an artist who would not live to see the museum retrospectives that followed his death.

How to recognize the edition

Catalogue descriptions agree on the essentials: screenprint in colors on thick or heavy wove paper, a sheet of about 46 by 82 inches (given as 116.2 to 117 cm by 208 to 208.3 cm), and an image of about 40 3/4 by 77 inches (103.5 by 195.6 cm). Impressions are signed and dated in pencil and numbered out of 75, with the publisher's blindstamp at lower left and, on some, publisher's inkstamps on the back.

The publisher was a gallery-run print publisher; different sale catalogs place it in New York, Los Angeles or Greenwich, Connecticut. One catalog notes both the publisher's and printer's chop marks at lower left. That catalog names the printer as Durham Press.

Proofs outside the numbered edition do come up. Sales have included an artist's proof numbered AP 7/7, a printer's proof numbered PP 2/3 and an unsigned proof aside from the edition. Several impressions have been sold in the publisher's original frame with the gallery's label on the back.

Condition matters on a sheet this size. Condition notes on sold impressions mention reds and oranges that have faded ('attenuated') with light exposure, slight waviness in the paper, and in one case a restored corner.

From $68,500 to six figures

Retrospect has a long public sales record. One market tracker counts 19 auction sales since its first in 2001. The earliest US-dollar result found for this page is $68,500 on April 25, 2012, for a printer's proof (PP 2/3) with faded reds and a restored corner, against an estimate of $30,000-50,000.

Prices climbed sharply in 2016. On April 25, 2016, an artist's proof (AP 7/7) sold at auction in New York for $197,000 against an estimate of $100,000-150,000. That November an unsigned proof aside from the edition brought $168,750.

In London, impression 28/75 sold for GBP 200,000 on September 20, 2018, and impression 36/75 for GBP 225,000 on September 18, 2019, both still in the publisher's original frames. Those results were reported only in pounds, so they are not in the price chart on this page. The same tracker now reports hammer prices from GBP 60,000 in September 2024 to GBP 99,505 in June 2026.

Not every impression is in private hands. The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Hokuto, Yamanashi, Japan, first showed its impression in the 2013 exhibition Keith Haring and the Pop World: A Retrospective.

Why it endures

Retrospect works as a reference sheet for the symbols he spent the decade inventing, made at the scale of a mural. It shows how a drawing style first worked out on subway walls could carry a full body of work.

It also sits where Haring's ideas about access ran into the market. The images came from the Pop Shop, where they sold cheaply on posters and buttons; gathered onto one large signed sheet in an edition of 75, they became a print that has sold for close to $200,000.

The numbers

Medium

Screenprint in colors on thick wove paper

Dimensions

Sheet 46 x 82 in.; given as 116.2 x 208.3 cm, 116 x 208 cm, 117 x 208 cm and 1160 x 2080 mm by different sources. Image about 1035 x 1950 mm (40 3/4 x 77 in.)

Catalogue raisonne

Littmann pp. 120-121

Edition

75, plus 7 artist's proofs

Publisher and printer

Published with the publisher's blindstamp; printed by Durham Press

Public collection

Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, Hokuto, Yamanashi, Japan (one impression)

Timeline

1. May 4, 1958

   Keith Haring is born in Reading, Pennsylvania.

2. 1978

   Haring moves to New York and enrolls at the School of Visual Arts.

3. 1980

   He begins his chalk drawings on blank advertising panels in the subway.

4. 1982

   Haring makes his SoHo gallery debut with a one-man show.

5. Apr 1986

   Haring opens the Pop Shop in SoHo; its prints later supply many of Retrospect's images.

6. 1988

   Haring is diagnosed with AIDS.

7. 1989

   Retrospect is printed and published as a screenprint in an edition of 75 plus 7 artist's proofs.

8. Aug 10, 1989

   Rolling Stone publishes Haring's interview describing his late work as 'summing up.'

9. Feb 16, 1990

   Haring dies of AIDS-related complications at 31.

10. 2001

    First recorded auction sale of Retrospect, according to one market tracker.

11. Apr 25, 2012

    A printer's proof sells at auction for $68,500.

12. Mar 16, 2013

    The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection debuts its impression in Keith Haring and the Pop World: A Retrospective, on view through January 6, 2014.

13. Apr 25, 2016

    An artist's proof sells at auction in New York for $197,000, the highest US-dollar result found for this page.

14. Nov 2, 2016

    An unsigned proof aside from the edition sells at auction for $168,750.

15. Sep 20, 2018

    Impression 28/75 sells at auction in London for GBP 200,000.

16. Sep 18, 2019

    Impression 36/75 sells at auction in London for GBP 225,000.

17. Oct 24, 2023

    Impression 9/75, from a private collection in Miami, sells at auction; the price is not published.

18. Jun 2026

    A hammer price of GBP 99,505 is recorded, the top of the five-year range one tracker reports.

The world in 1989

• Jan 20, 1989

  George H. W. Bush is inaugurated as president of the United States.

• Mar 12, 1989

  Tim Berners-Lee produces the proposal that becomes the blueprint for the World Wide Web.

• Mar 24, 1989

  The Exxon Valdez runs aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound and spills 240,000 barrels of oil.

• Jun 4, 1989

  Chinese troops crack down on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

• Aug 10, 1989

  General Colin Powell becomes the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

• Nov 9, 1989

  East Germany opens the checkpoints in the Berlin Wall.

• Nov 20, 1989

  The crowd of peaceful protesters in Prague swells to an estimated half-million during the Velvet Revolution.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Retrospect is number 36 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (48 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• In the interview published the summer he made Retrospect, Haring called his late work 'a chance to put a crown on the whole thing.'
• Some of the 24 images in the grid do not appear in Haring's earlier Pop Shop prints and were apparently meant for a series he never made.
• Haring could make as many as forty subway chalk drawings in a single day, the same images he later gathered into this print.
• The Keith Haring Foundation catalogs a second 1989 sheet also titled Retrospect, the same size, in an edition of only 10.
• Several impressions have come to market still in the frame the publisher supplied in 1989, with the gallery's label on the back.
• Haring started the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989, the same year he made Retrospect.