Keith Haring The Valley Portfolio For Sale: Facts | Meaning | Market Demand

The Valley is a suite of sixteen etchings made by Keith Haring in 1989 to accompany “The Valley”, the final chapter of William S. Burroughs’s novel The Western Lands (1987). Haring drew the images on copper plates in his New York studio in April 1989, and Burroughs copied his text out by hand, which was photo-etched and printed in red alongside Haring’s black line. The story is set in a crevasse where people who do not know where they came from live under quarantine because of an unnamed virus, and the text describes how only scientists and doctors would be allowed near the valley people while there was a risk of “an unknown disease agent getting loose in the world’s population”. Burroughs does not name AIDS, but Haring’s images show what the afflicted go through: faces melting apart, figures falling to their deaths and bodies with incisions in the abdomen. The line is fine and detailed, quite unlike the bold figures he was best known for.

Haring had been HIV positive for two years when he drew the plates, and he had first come across Burroughs and the Beat writers at the Nova Convention in 1978, as a student. The Valley was the last of their collaborations, after Apocalypse in 1988, and was published by George Mulder Fine Art in New York in February 1990. Haring died on 16 February, and an exhibition of both portfolios was due to open at the Charles Lucien Gallery the next day. He had said in a 1988 interview that “all of the things that you make are a kind of quest for immortality”. For collectors, The Valley is Haring’s final collaboration with the writer who shaped his work, in a dark and detailed suite that stands apart from his bright, bold prints.

For more information or to buy Keith Haring The Valley prints, contact our specialists via info@alexyellop.com. Discover more Keith Haring signed prints for sale or find out more about selling your Keith Haring prints.