Untitled 3, from the Figure Portfolio by Jean-Michel Basquiat is the only work in the series that places two figures together — a shift that changes everything about how the image reads. Where the other prints in the portfolio give a single figure space to assert its presence against the surrounding density, this one divides that space between two bodies standing in close proximity, each constructed from a different weight and colour of line, each with its own speech bubble above it containing text that doesn't resolve into legible language.

The relationship between the two figures is the work's subject, and Basquiat leaves it genuinely open. They are facing outward rather than toward each other, occupying the same ground without quite sharing it. The figure on the left is broader and more grounded, its torso built from a yellow grid structure; the one on the right is more linear, loosely cross-hatched in red and orange, its form slightly less defined. Neither dominates. The speech bubbles suggest communication but deliver notation — the conversation, if that is what it is, is happening in a language the image refuses to translate.

Basquiat's figures from this period drew heavily on sources that placed two bodies in relation as a way of examining social and political conditions — the boxer and his opponent, the artist and his patron, the subject and the institution studying him. Untitled 3 does not name its relationship, which is precisely what makes it compelling. Two figures, distinct in construction, sharing a ground they do not fully inhabit together, surrounded by the same density of marks and symbols that press in on every figure in the portfolio — the conditions, whatever they are, apply equally to both.

For more information or to buy Untitled 3, from the Figure Portfolio by Jean-Michel Basquiat, contact our specialists using the enquiry button above.