Pop Shop IV (D), (Littmann P. 147) by Keith Haring centres on one of the most recurring and recognisable motifs within the artist’s: the barking dog. The work was created as part of Haring’s important Pop Shop IV series, developed in direct connection with his Pop Shop project in SoHo, opened in 1986

Produced in 1989 as a silkscreen, the work depicts two vivid red dogs facing one another across brilliant yellow, their open mouths emitting clusters of black marks that visualise sound, energy and communication.

Reduced to simplified angular forms and heavy black outlines, the image captures the immediacy that made Haring’s work instantly identifiable across the streets of New York and far beyond.

The barking dog first appeared in Haring’s subway drawings during the early 1980s and quickly became one of his defining symbols alongside the radiant baby and dancing figures. Throughout his career, the motif operated in multiple ways simultaneously — as a symbol of authority, aggression, warning, protection and communication. Haring often used barking dogs to represent systems of power or social control, but also as playful, energetic presences rooted in the of cartoons, graffiti and street signage. .

The barking dog motif remained central because it condensed so many of the tensions present throughout his art — noise and silence, playfulness and aggression, communication and confrontation. Pop Shop IV (D) demonstrates Haring’s extraordinary ability to transform a radically simplified symbol into an image charged with rhythm, movement and cultural energy, reinforcing why the barking dog remains one of the defining motifs of his career.

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