'Every single line means something,' Basquiat says

Featuring a sharply delineated head, a theme that would become a hallmark of Basquiat's work, "Untitled" (Pecho/ Oreja) possesses a strong musical quality and has hung at U2's studio in Dublin for nearly 30 years.

In his short, tempestuous and prolific life, Jean-Michel Basquiat managed to both thumb his nose at society and become the darling of the art establishment.

He loved bebop, jazz and Jimi Hendrix, incorporating both raw notes and subliminal harmony into his work. He hated hypocrisy and racism, channeling his rage into bold strokes and complex networks of lines and circles.

"As soon as I saw his art, I was mesmerized," said John Seed, who met the artist in 1983 when 23-year-old Basquiat was already a star. "Looking at his paintings gave me the feeling Van Gogh was alive."

Basquiat started as a graffiti artist, painting with friend Al Diaz. They used the walls of buildings and T-shirts as the canvas for energetic, spontaneous works, signing them SAMO, meaning Same Old Shit. Basquiat moved on to paint, collage and crayon, frequently on unprimed canvas, depicting powerful, often angry figures and graffiti-like writing.

"I don't think about art when I'm working," he said. "I try to think about life."

Although he dropped out of high school and cultivated a street smart image, Basquiat's beginnings in Brooklyn were planted firmly in the middle class. His father Gerard was an accountant and former minister of the interior in his native Haiti. His mother Matilde, of Puerto Rican descent, stayed home to raise young Jean-Michel and two sisters.

In 1982, he was befriended by pop art icon Andy Warhol, who became his patron and sometime collaborator. That same year, Basquiat painted "Untitled (Pecho/Oreja)," which combines a skull-like delineated head with primitive squiggles reminiscent of an African reliquary mask. The painting was spotted in 1989 in a New York gallery by Adam Clayton, bassist for U2, and the rock band bought the work to hang in their Dublin studio. It sold July 1 at Sotheby's in London, where it fetched $10 million.

"It seems especially appropriate that a work by Basquiat should end up at a music studio, since so much has been said about the relationship between his art and music," Oliver Barker, senior specialist at Sotheby's contemporary art department, said in a statement.

Stylized heads, graffiti-style writing and energetic imagery are hallmarks of Basquiat, who augmented oils and acrylics with paper, oil stick, metallic paint and spray paint.

"Basquiat is many things to many people, but I think many are drawn to the immediacy of his works, which are boldly and seemingly unselfconsciously realized," said Robert Manley, head of the post-war and contemporary art department at Christie's in New York. "The images are apparently childlike, but are actually tackling serious subjects, including cultural, art historical and racial issues."

Seed was an aspiring artist who worked for Los Angeles gallery owner Larry Gagosian, who handled some of Basquiat's works and was the subject of one of the artist's portraits. Seed was assigned to drive Basquiat in his pickup truck, taking him on errands and on shopping trips to art stores.

He frequently arrived at Basquiat's apartment to find the artist groggy after a night of painting. Frequently, Basquiat ate on his paintings, piling plates on the unprimed canvases he used as a table. Sometimes, he slept on them.

"Jean was virtually always smoking pot, like a Rastafarian," Seed said. "He could be awful and it was clear he didn't like me. He was terribly troubled."

Basquiat admitted as much in a 1985 interview with The New York Times Magazine in which he confessed to egotism and eccentricity.

"I had some money: I made the best paintings ever," he said. "I was completely reclusive, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people."

Seed said Basquiat was obnoxious and argumentative, yet endearing. He loved watching cartoons and eating Chinese takeout, immortalized in "2 ½ Hours of Chinese Food." He also possessed a winning personality and a pleasant, soothing voice that he used to best advantage. He dated an ascendant Madonna and was a popular fixture at clubs in Los Angeles and New York.

"Jean could be very sweet and charming, quite ingratiating and he had lots of friends," he recalled. "He could turn it on and turn it off."

Warhol died in 1987 from complications following routine gallbladder surgery. Basquiat's remaining friends grew increasingly concerned about his heavy drug use, which frequently manifested itself in paranoia and angry outbursts.

In 1988, Basquiat returned from a trip to his ranch in Hawaii and proclaimed he was free of drugs. Two months later, he died of a heroin overdose. He was 27.

Thirty years later, Basquiat is still turning the art world on its ear by virtue of its power and energy.

"You can't look at his career or his value in a rational way," said Seed, now an art professor at Mount San Jacinto College in California. "He was a martyr, with brutal, subversive honesty."

Values continue to rise. In May, "Untitled/Fallen Angel," Basquiat's 1981 acrylic and oil stick on canvas rendition of a winged, red-mouthed angel on a bright blue background, sold for $11.2 million at the Phillips de Pury sale in New York, going to a local dealer bidding for a client in France.

Manley predicts Basquiat's work will hold its value and continue to increase over time.

"Basquiat is one of a relatively small number of truly blue chip artists in the market," he said. "His market has stood the test of almost 30 years and will always have a place in the pantheon of art history and in important collections."