In a resurrection few could have predicted, Jean-Michel Basquiat joined Picasso, Modigliani, and Munch when one of his paintings sold for more than $100 million. Nearly four decades after his untimely death at 27 years of age, Basquiat is one of the most recognizable artists in the world, his work not just headlining major museum and private collections but his image on T-shirts, sneakers, tattoos, and accessories from Rio to Singapore.
Drawing on more than 100 interviews—including family members, friends, lovers, gallery owners, collectors, musicians, academics, and artists—art-world insider Doug Woodham offers a revealing account of Basquiat’s life, work, and enduring legacy. He delves into Basquiat’s rich and complex family background, his overlapping identities, and the dramatic arc of his posthumous fall and rise—an ascent that has reshaped the art-world itself. This behind-the-scenes narrative pulls back the curtain on how the art world selects its icons and cements their place in history.
The first substantive biography in more than a quarter century, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon examines key aspects of the artist’s life—his childhood trauma, sexuality, cultural identities, and struggles with addiction—topics long downplayed in the museum and art world due to pressure from his estate. Woodham also uncovers the previously untold story of how a few against-the-grain speculators and gallerists—plus his uniquely skilled father—all contributed to bringing what Basquiat accomplished back to the center of the conversation nearly a decade after his death, and in the process helped to birth a new era in contemporary art.
Reviews
Doug Woodham traces the deliberate and astonishingly successful way in which Basquiat was reshaped from downtown New York scenester into blue-chip, investment-grade asset class. Woodham’s story pulls away the curtain—the high-profile advertising campaigns, the bestselling children’s book, the popular mythology of a tortured genius—to reveal the hidden levers, as well as the small number of men who operated them.
— Bloomberg
Basquiat's work speaks with urgency and raw emotion—but what happens to an artist after they’re gone? Doug Woodham traces the extraordinary evolution of Basquiat’s legacy, exploring the art world’s gatekeepers, the commercialization of his image, and the deeper truths often left out of his story.
— Nia DaCosta, writer/director of the films "Little Woods," "Candyman," "The Marvels," and "Hedda"
Aims to illuminate the near-mythical artist’s life, via the friends, family and collaborators who knew him best.
— HUCK
Doug Woodham delivers a meticulously researched portrait of Basquiat, whose influence has long outlived his brief life. This clear-eyed account charts the artist's ascent, the forces that shaped his legacy, and the champions who helped secure his place in the cultural canon.
— Bonnie Brennan, CEO, Christie’s
Jean-Michel Basquiat filled his canvases with iconic images drawn from Black history and culture, inscribed with stream-of-consciousness intensity. Doug Woodham's biography vividly brings to life Basquiat's childhood, meteoric rise, and tragically brief career; then pulls back the curtain on the long, slow process by which curators and collectors recognized his stature as a towering figure in contemporary art.
— Pepe Karmel, Professor, Department of Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Few artists have transcended the boundaries of high art and mainstream culture as completely as Jean-Michel Basquiat. In The Making of an Icon, Doug Woodham expertly dissects the mechanisms that propelled Basquiat's work into the cultural and commercial stratosphere.
— Anita Elberse, Harvard Business School professor of marketing, and leading expert on the business of sports, media, and entertainment
How an artist became a superstar… A perceptive examination of the life, art, and legacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat… Woodham portrays Basquiat as a man with a 'ravenous appetite for new experiences'; intensely competitive, he 'wanted to be known as one of the great artists of his generation'… [The author] offers an insider’s look at the business of art, revealing the aesthetics and motivations of Basquiat’s early and posthumous collectors; the gallery owners who represented him; and the economic, cultural, and social forces that shape taste and monetary value.
— Kirkus Reviews
An intriguing window into how the art world anoints its stars.
— Publishers Weekly
Author Doug Woodham … might be the perfect person to explain the artist’s unmatched longevity at the intersection of appreciation and appropriation. Informed by interviews with fellow artists, gallerists and many others, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon is a fascinating chronicle of marketplace immortality.
— Salon, 10 Fall Biographies You Won't Want to Miss
Invaluable on the [artist's] afterlife. Woodham is well placed to dissect Basquiat's legacy.
— Literary Review
Contributors
Doug Woodham
Author
Doug Woodham is the managing partner of Art Fiduciary Advisors, an NY-based firm focused on providing advice on the financial aspects of owning and selling fine art. He most recently served as president of the Americas for Christie’s and is the author of Art Collecting Today: Market Insights for Everyone Passionate about Art. He lives in New York with his wife and family.
