Art by Keith Haring

For a few years in the early 1980s, Haring's actual studio was the New York subway. He filled blank black advertising panels with chalk drawings, sometimes dozens a day, on his way through the system, building a visual language of radiant babies, barking dogs, and dancing figures that New Yorkers started recognizing on sight. He was arrested more than once for it, though by most accounts the police sometimes seemed as charmed by the work as everyone else. In 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in Soho specifically to sell cheap merchandise carrying his imagery, a deliberate move to keep his art accessible after critics accused him of selling out by working with brands.

He was close with Andy Warhol and designed stage looks for Madonna, and body-painted Grace Jones for her performances. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, he spent his remaining time building the Keith Haring Foundation to fund AIDS organizations and children's programs, and died in 1990 at 31. In November 2024, 31 of his original subway chalk drawings, held by a single collector since the 1990s, sold at Sotheby's for a combined $9.2 million.