New Rizzoli Book Reveals Unseen Jean-Michel Basquiat Notebooks From the '80s

Timed with his Brooklyn Museum exhibition next year, rare Basquiat notebooks will be published in a new book.

Image via Brooklyn Museum

Two months ago, the Brooklyn Museum announced a major exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat's never-before-seen notebooks, which opens on April 3, 2015 and will be on view through Aug. 23, 2015. Titled "Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks," the exhibition will focus on these rare books (160 pages total) created between 1980 and 1987. They'll also be exhibited with 30 paintings, drawings, and mixed media works from private collections and the artist's estate, to show parallels between the early sketches and the eventual art pieces.

To coincide with the exhibition's opening, Rizzoli will release a book in April 2015, edited by Dieter Buchhart and Tricia Laughlin Bloom​, showing the "texts, poems, pictograms, and drawings, many of them iconic images that recur throughout his artwork—teepees, crowns, skeleton-like silhouettes, and grimacing masks." The book and exhibition will show the roots of Basquiat's now famous paintings and the underlying importance of the written word in his aesthetic.

Pre-order the book on Amazon and visit the exhibition from April 3 to Aug. 23, 2015 at the Brooklyn Museum.

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