Untitled (skull)

The first month of the big year

Basquiat finished this canvas in January 1982, the first month of the year that collectors and specialists now treat as his best. It shows a huge skull-like head in thick black strokes, laced with red, yellow and white rivulets and set against an electric blue ground. Over the head floats the three-pointed crown he had been spraying on downtown walls for years.

The surface rewards a close look. In the upper section are traces of a crossed-out tic-tac-toe grid, surrounded by layers of overwritten and overpainted letters. At the lower left, a spiky upper-case and lower-case letter 'a' stand out in black oilstick. On the reverse Basquiat signed the canvas, wrote 'NYC' and dated it '82.'

The catalog for the 2017 sale tied the painting's energy to his street work: the bold outlines, the crown and the scrawled typography all came from SAMO, the graffiti tag he had used in the late 1970s, now brought onto a monumental canvas.

From SAMO to Documenta

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born December 22, 1960, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Beginning in 1978 he and Al Diaz wrote satirical phrases across Lower Manhattan under the tag SAMO, slang for 'same old, same old.' Lines like 'SAMO © AS A CONGLOMERATE OF DORMANT-GENIOUS' turned up on walls in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

By 1981 he had joined the Annina Nosei Gallery and was painting in its basement. The year 1982 then moved faster than almost any career in modern art. He had his first American solo show at Nosei in March, followed by solo shows with Larry Gagosian in Los Angeles, Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich and the Fun Gallery in New York. At 21 he became the youngest artist ever to take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. In October 1982 he began his friendship with Andy Warhol.

Experts give several reasons why that year matters most: his move from the street to the studio, a new supply of large canvases, a run of solo shows, and a freedom from the market pressures that weighed on him later. According to the third edition of his catalogue raisonné, published in 2000, there are about 200 major canvases from 1982.

Basquiat made roughly 1,500 drawings and 600 paintings in a career of about a decade. He died of a heroin overdose at his Manhattan home on August 12, 1988, at 27.

New York, 1982

Basquiat's paintings were selling so fast in 1982 that, as a 1985 New York Times profile reported, observers joked the paint was barely dry. This canvas moved within weeks. The Annina Nosei Gallery sold it to Phoebe Chason in January 1982, and by June it belonged to the dealer Alexander F. Milliken. That year it changed hands for $4,000.

Milliken included it in 'Fast,' a group show of new figurative painting at his New York gallery in June and July 1982. That is the exhibition date the 2017 sale catalog gives, while one magazine account puts the painting in a February group show at the same gallery.

The wider world that year included the Falklands War, which began on April 1 and ended on June 14. 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' opened on June 11, the first compact discs were produced in Germany in August, and Michael Jackson released 'Thriller' on November 29.

Thirty-five years out of sight

On May 8, 1984, the painting sold at auction in New York for $19,000, and the buyers were the collectors Emily and Jerry Spiegel. They kept it for 33 years. Apart from 'Fast' in 1982, the painting was not shown in public again until the preview for its 2017 sale.

On May 18, 2017, it came up as lot 24 in an evening sale in New York. The room went quiet. The auctioneer opened at $57 million, the Basquiat auction record at the time, which drew gasps. About ten minutes of slow bidding followed, bouncing between the phones and a dealer in the room. When the hammer fell at $98 million, the room cheered. With fees, the price was $110.5 million.

The buyer announced himself on Instagram that night. Yusaku Maezawa, 41, the founder of the Japanese online fashion retailer Zozotown, wrote: 'I am happy to announce that I just won this masterpiece.' He had also bought the previous record holder, another untitled 1982 Basquiat, for $57.3 million the year before. He later said that as the bidding passed $60 million, he grew more confident about how important and rare the work was.

Maezawa sent the painting on tour. 'One Basquiat' at the Brooklyn Museum, from January 26 to March 11, 2018, brought it home to the borough where Basquiat was born and where his mother had enrolled him as a junior museum member at age six. It went next to the Seattle Art Museum in 2018 and to the Brant Foundation in New York's East Village from March to May 2019.

In 2024 Maezawa sold it privately to the hedge fund founder Kenneth C. Griffin, reportedly for $200 million, almost twice his 2017 price. The columnist who reported it said neither side responded to requests for comment. Griffin lent it to 'Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols,' a show of works from his collection at the Pérez Art Museum Miami that opened June 25, 2026.

The records it set

The 2017 price was then the highest at auction for any work made after 1980, the highest for any American artist, passing Andy Warhol's $105 million for Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), and the sixth-highest for any work at auction. It nearly doubled Basquiat's previous record. Basquiat, who was 21 when he painted it, is the youngest artist whose work has passed $100 million.

As of 2026 it remains the auction record for Basquiat. His second-highest auction price, $93 million in 2021, was for In This Case, a 1983 painting that is also a skull, against a red background.

One writer worked out that the 2017 price was more than 10,000 times the painting's original 1982 price, even after adjusting for inflation.

The numbers

Medium

Acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas

Dimensions

183.2 x 173 cm (72 1/8 x 68 1/8 in)

Catalogue raisonné

Marshall and Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd ed. (2000), vol. II, no. 4

Current owner

Kenneth C. Griffin collection

Timeline

1. Dec 22, 1960

   Jean-Michel Basquiat is born in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

2. 1978

   Basquiat and Al Diaz begin writing as SAMO across Lower Manhattan.

3. 1981

   Basquiat joins the Annina Nosei Gallery and paints in its basement.

4. Jan 1982

   Basquiat completes Untitled. The gallery sells it to Phoebe Chason.

5. Mar 1982

   His first American solo show opens at Annina Nosei.

6. Jun 1982

   Now owned by Alexander F. Milliken, the painting is shown in the group exhibition 'Fast' in New York, through July.

7. 1982

   At 21, Basquiat becomes the youngest artist ever to take part in Documenta in Kassel.

8. May 8, 1984

   Sold at auction in New York for $19,000 to Emily and Jerry Spiegel.

9. Aug 12, 1988

   Basquiat dies in Manhattan at 27.

10. 2000

    Published as no. 4 in volume II of the third edition of Basquiat's catalogue raisonné.

11. May 2016

    Yusaku Maezawa sets the Basquiat record at $57.3 million for a different untitled 1982 painting.

12. May 18, 2017

    Sold at auction in New York for $110.5 million with fees to Maezawa.

13. Jan 26, 2018

    'One Basquiat' opens at the Brooklyn Museum, running through March 11.

14. 2018

    Lent to the Seattle Art Museum.

15. Mar 2019

    Shown at the Brant Foundation in New York through May.

16. 2024

    Maezawa sells it to Kenneth C. Griffin, in a private sale reported at $200 million.

17. Jun 25, 2026

    Goes on view in 'Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols' at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

The world in 1982

• Jan 13, 1982

  Air Florida Flight 90 crashes in Washington, D.C., killing 78.

• Apr 1, 1982

  Argentine forces invade the Falkland Islands. Argentina surrenders June 14.

• Jun 6, 1982

  Israel invades Lebanon.

• Jun 11, 1982

  Steven Spielberg's 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' is released.

• Aug 17, 1982

  The first compact discs are produced in Germany.

• Oct 1, 1982

  Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player.

• Nov 29, 1982

  Michael Jackson releases 'Thriller.'

• Dec 2, 1982

  Barney Clark receives the first permanent artificial heart.

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, Untitled (skull) is number 4 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 (3 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The painting sold for $4,000 in 1982 and $19,000 in 1984.
• Between the summer of 1982 and its 2017 sale preview, it was never shown in public.
• Bidding in 2017 opened at $57 million, which was the Basquiat record at the time and was held by the same buyer.
• Maezawa celebrated a birthday with a cake decorated with a frosted copy of the painting.
• Basquiat was born at Brooklyn Hospital, and his mother made him a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum when he was six. The museum showed the painting in 2018.
• Basquiat was 21 when he painted it, which makes him the youngest artist to pass $100 million at auction.