Basquiat frequently returned to the human figure throughout his career, often stripped down to an exposed, skeletal form that recalls both anatomical study and the masks and figures of African art. In Untitled (Yellow Tar and Feathers), three such figures appear, one at eye level and two above wearing Basquiat’s signature crown, alongside a smaller, more vulnerable figure whose presence points toward a specific and difficult history. 

The painting connects to Basquiat’s long-standing interest in race, power, and colonial history. Its title, and the word “tar” scrawled beside a hangman drawing on the panel, refer to tarring and feathering, a violent form of public humiliation used at different points in United States history to punish, intimidate, and dehumanize people because of their race. 

Basquiat’s title is not a metaphor. Actual feathers are worked directly into the painting’s surface. Rather than depicting the practice from a distance, the painting carries its material trace directly on the canvas. The painting was first shown in 1982 at Larry Gagosian’s Los Angeles gallery, hung alongside a companion piece, Untitled (Black Tar and Feathers), on the facing wall.

Tarring and feathering is a form of public punishment in which a person is stripped, covered in hot tar, and then coated in feathers. The earliest documented use of the practice dates to 1189, when King Richard I of England ordered it as punishment for theft at sea. In colonial America, it was adopted as a tool of vigilante justice, used primarily by Patriots in the 1760s and 1770s against British tax collectors and Loyalists who supported the Crown. After the Revolution, the practice resurfaced repeatedly across American history, directed at a shifting cast of targets: abolitionists in the antebellum South, Catholic immigrants, labor organizers, and Black Americans. 

During the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century, tar-and-feathering became one of the organization’s signature forms of racial terror, deployed alongside lynchings, whippings, and acid brandings against Black Americans, Jewish communities, and others deemed threatening to white supremacy. In 1919, during what historians call the Red Summer, a period of widespread anti-Black violence across the United States following World War I, two Black college students at the University of Maine were tarred and feathered by a white mob. Though rarely fatal, the attack left lasting physical damage. Victims suffered severe burns, and removing the tar required pulling it from the skin in patches, often taking hair and skin with it. 

Through this work, Basquiat connects his personal visual language to a broader history of racial violence and the fight for justice, and to his larger practice of placing Black figures and identity at the center of art history. 

Untitled (Yellow Tar and Feathers) by Jean-Michel Basquiat is an acrylic, oil stick, crayon, paper collage, and feather painting on wood from 1982. The painting is ninety-six and a half inches tall by ninety and a half inches wide, or about eight feet by eight feet. It is hung in portrait orientation, meaning that it is hung with its longest side perpendicular to the floor. 

The painting is built on joined wood panels, an unusual support that Basquiat used only occasionally. It is painted mostly in bright yellow, with feathers worked directly into the surface alongside acrylic, oil stick, crayon, and paper collage. 

Three figures appear on the canvas: one at eye level and two more above it, each wearing Basquiat’s signature three-pointed crown. The figures have exposed, skeletal-like bodies, a form that recalls African masks. Loose, energetic brushstrokes in green, orange, red, and blue spread across the surface, along with scribbled words and Basquiat’s black outlines. On the left side of the painting, a small, exposed figure appears next to the word “tar.” 

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn in 1960 to a Haitian father, Gérard, and a Puerto Rican mother, Matilde. French, Spanish, and English were all spoken at home, and by age eleven Basquiat was fluent in all three. In 1974, the family relocated to Miramar, Puerto Rico for two years before returning to Brooklyn in 1976. 

Despite its title, only one Italian word appears in the painting: sangue, meaning blood, and it is crossed out and replaced with the Spanish word sangre, a reminder that Basquiat’s own multilingual upbringing. Italy nonetheless played a real role in Basquiat’s early career. In 1981, he had his first solo exhibition at the Galleria d’Arte Emilio Mazzoli in Modena, returning for a second Italian show the following year. That period of international recognition coincided with a period of intense scrutiny, as European institutions and critics turned their attention to Basquiat as a young Black American artist entering a historically white art world. The painting has also been connected to Basquiat’s interest in the Italian Renaissance tradition of anatomical study, visible in the exposed, structural way the figures are painted. 

In Italian was painted in 1983 on Crosby Street in New York. The large head right of center is believed to be a portrait of Stephen Torton, Basquiat’s studio assistant at the time. Basquiat later traded the painting directly to Andy Warhol, with whom he was close during this period. It later passed through the collection of Peter Brant before entering the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection.

In Italian by Jean-Michel Basquiat is an acrylic, oil stick, and marker on canvas painting, mounted on wood, from 1983. The painting is eighty-eight and a half inches tall by eighty inches wide, or about seven feet by seven feet. It is hung in portrait orientation, meaning that it is hung with its longest side perpendicular to the floor. 

The canvas is split into two color fields. The left half is a soft mint green, the right half shifts between pink and a brighter green. A large head and shoulders dominate the right side of the composition. The face is teal green with a red-brown outline, wide white eyes with small dark pupils, a gapped row of visible teeth, and reddish marks across the forehead and cheek suggesting cuts or tally marks. Below the head, the word “SANGRE” appears in black block letters, with “¿SANGUE?” written just beneath it and crossed out with a diagonal line. 

In the upper right corner, the words “LIBERTY” and “1951” appear near a simple line drawing of a face in profile. Nearby, “CROWN OF THORNS” is written in black paint, and the numbers “1594-1752” sit at the very top of the canvas alongside “TEN CENT” and “TEETH.” 

On the left side, a circular emblem near the top contains a profile face drawn in red line work, the word “LIBERTY,” and the phrase “IN GOD WE TRUST” below it. Underneath the circle, “TEETH” is repeated three times, stacked vertically. Below that, a red anatomical heart shape sits inside a loose rectangular frame, labeled “DIAGRAM OF THE HEART PUMPING BLOOD.” Further down, a small black silhouette of a figure with one arm raised in a fist stands beside a ladder shape and patches of red paint that could read as flames or wounds. 

Smaller details are scattered throughout. A black grid resembling a window or scoreboard on the right, a small green cartoon-like face near the top right, and the word “CORPUS” in black block letters near the bottom of the pink section. Along the very bottom edge, three small framed sections contain dense, overlapping scribbled text that is difficult to fully make out. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat created Pez Dispenser in 1984 using acrylic and oil stick on canvas. The painting features one of Basquiat’s most recognizable symbols: a three-pointed crown floating above a dinosaur-like figure. Throughout his career, Basquiat combined images from art history, popular culture, music, literature, science, sports, and his own experiences.

Pez Dispenser was created during a period when Basquiat was gaining international recognition. As his career grew, he continued to explore the relationship between popular culture and fine art. The title refers to the well-known candy dispenser. To release a piece of candy from a Pez dispenser, the character’s head is tilted backward, briefly separating it from the body. That mechanism echoes Basquiat’s larger interest in crowns, power, and the vulnerability of those who wear them. 

Floating above the dinosaur is Basquiat’s signature three-pointed crown. The crown is one of the artist’s most recognizable symbols and appears throughout his paintings, drawings, and prints. Rather than representing royalty alone, Basquiat often used the crown to honor people whose achievements deserved greater recognition. He frequently crowned Black artists, musicians, athletes, writers, and historical figures, celebrating their creativity, talent, and cultural influence. The crown can also symbolize excellence, leadership, resilience, and the challenges that often accompany success. 

The crown appears in several of Basquiat’s most well-known works, including Charles the First (1982), a painting created as a tribute to jazz musician Charlie Parker. In that work, Basquiat wrote the phrase, “MOST YOUNG KINGS GET THEIR HEADS CUT OFF.” Art historians often interpret this statement as a reflection on the pressures of fame and the ways talented individuals, particularly young Black artists and musicians, can be celebrated while also facing exploitation, criticism, or early loss. Although these words do not appear in Pez Dispenser, the crowned dinosaur can be understood within the same larger conversation about achievement, recognition, and vulnerability. 

Pez Dispenser brings together several of Basquiat’s recurring interests: popular and consumer culture, the symbolism of the crown, and questions of who gets recognized and remembered. The crowned dinosaur asks viewers to hold those ideas together in one immediately readable image.

Pez Dispenser by Jean-Michel Basquiat is an acrylic and oil stick on canvas painting from 1984. The painting is seventy-two inches tall by forty-eight inches wide, or about six feet by four feet. It is hung in portrait orientation, meaning that it is hung with its longest side perpendicular to the floor. 

The background is a broad field of off-white paint that covers nearly the entire canvas. Subtle variations in tone and faint traces of brushwork can be seen throughout. The empty space around the figure creates a sense of openness and draws attention to the shapes near the upper half of the painting. 

Near the top center of the painting floats a bright yellow crown outlined in black. The crown has three pointed peaks and hovers above the figure below, separated by a small gap of empty space, so it appears suspended against the pale background. 

Below the crown, a creature resembling a dinosaur stands near the center-left of the canvas, facing left. Its body is outlined with thick black lines and filled with black, purple, red, yellow, and white. The head is large in proportion to the rest of the body and has two red oval eyes outlined in white. A row of sharp white teeth fills the open mouth in a jagged pattern against the dark head. 

Along the creature’s back, a line of red triangular spikes runs from the neck to the tail, with thin areas of yellow paint between some of the spikes and the dark body beneath them. The torso is mostly black, while purple and deep blue spread across the lower body and tail. Loose red lines circle parts of the torso, layered over the painted form. 

The creature stands upright on two legs with small arms reaching forward. Its feet and claws are simplified into angular shapes. From the center of the painting, a long purple tail stretches diagonally toward the lower right corner, narrowing as it crosses the open background. Near the tip, the purple paint becomes thinner and lighter before ending in a small gray drip mark. 

Thick black outlines define the creature’s shape, and visible brushstrokes and oil stick marks remain exposed across the surface. The figure appears both carefully placed and quickly drawn, with the artist’s hand still visible in the paint. 

Overall, Pez Dispenser shows a crowned prehistoric creature standing alone in a large field of empty space. The yellow crown, red spikes, white teeth, and long purple tail stand out clearly against the pale background. The plain background and the busy, energetic marks on the creature work against each other, giving the figure a strong presence despite all the open space around it. 

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