KEITH HARING

Haring's exuberant pop sensibility combined with his owlish looks and gregarious personality made him, in the words of a friend, "a true phenomenon." Galleries and collectors fought over his work and he became a fixture on N.Y.'s clubby art scene.
Whereas many artists get less interesting when they become famous, Haring became more so. That's because of the sincerity and intensity of his impulse, visible in that subway work, to bring art to the people. Accessibility was a key concept for him, and whether it was opening a store called the Pop Shop in SoHo or doing elaborate drawings on give-away T-shirts, he held true to his beliefs.When Haring was diagnosed with AIDS, the disease that killed him in 1990, one of the things he did was throw himself with remarkable energy into a series of public art projects that reflected this generosity of spirit. Though collaborators and friends like Bill T. Jones reflect thoughtfully on a man whose impulse, Jones says, "was to do the work and live the life," it is the passion and commitment we see in the artist himself that makes the most lasting impression.

L.A. Times
Oct 31 2008