{"id":656471,"date":"2026-05-08T18:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656471\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T18:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:03:09","slug":"i-told-his-family-he-was-hiv-positive-keith-harings-best-friend-on-life-with-the-artist-as-unseen-works-go-on-show-keith-haring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656471\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I told his family he was HIV positive\u2019: Keith Haring\u2019s best friend on life with the artist as unseen works go on show | Keith Haring"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story of how Keith Haring<\/a> came to paint a crib began on a quiet, ordinary afternoon in 1986. His best friend\u2019s wife was pregnant, and the couple didn\u2019t have the money to buy a new crib for their home in New York City<\/a>\u2019s Greenpoint neighborhood. \u201cI called my parents to ask if my old crib was still in the attic,\u201d says artist Kermit Oswald, Haring\u2019s friend since childhood. \u201cI got it and I painted it yellow, then Keith came over, we had a few beers and he painted the rest of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haring is famed as an enduring, globally recognized celebrant of Aids activism, nightlife and the New York Bohemian scene of the 1980s. But he honored his connection with his straight best friend even as he rubbed shoulders with Andy Warhol<\/a>, Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a> and Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oswald\u2019s collection of Haring\u2019s work is now on display in Haring\u2019s House: Works From the Collection of Kermit Oswald<\/a>, a public exhibition at Sotheby\u2019s New York this month, with the works going to auction in two sales on 14 and 15 May. The most surprising item is the crib. It\u2019s taxi-cab yellow with paintings of dachshunds (the Oswald family dog) and two figures representing Oswald and his wife, Lisa.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of 20 Haring works going to auction. The marquee lot is a 1985 self-portrait, one of only six the artist ever painted on canvas. The auction estimates are $3m-$5m, with the crib alone estimated at $250,000 to $350,000. With many items never seen publicly, it shows a personal side to one of the most iconic gay artists in history.<\/p>\n

Keith Haring, Untitled. Photograph: Courtesy of Kermit Oswald<\/p>\n

Oswald knew Haring since they were five years old. They met by passing notes at church in their home town of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. As boys, they shared a passion for \u201ccreating things\u201d and started drawing together. \u201cWe rode bicycles and played baseball, though on different teams, and were always in each other\u2019s homes,\u201d he says. They delivered their paper routes together; the loser of the morning race had to buy ice-cream.<\/p>\n

Haring loved \u201cartistic pranks\u201d, Oswald says. In high school, a neighboring farm\u2019s silo had fallen and was lying across the field. \u201cKeith said it looked like a blimp,\u201d Oswald recalled, so at night they painted the Goodyear logo across the side. \u201cThis was farm country. There was no graffiti anywhere, and Keith did not fundamentally see himself as a graffiti artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Haring, Untitled. Photograph: Courtesy of of Kermit Oswald<\/p>\n

Haring\u2019s early untitled works on paper from the late 1970s and early 1980s often used cut-up newspapers and Xeroxed clippings, a practice influenced by William Burroughs<\/a>\u2019s cut-up technique. The two met in 1983 and collaborated on Apocalypse<\/a>, a series of silkscreen prints with text by Burroughs, in 1988, the year Haring tested positive for HIV.<\/p>\n

In our conversation, Oswald offers a clue to interpreting Haring\u2019s oeuvre: \u201cYou have to remember, Keith was a paperboy.\u201d Oswald says the artist\u2019s many untitled pieces should be read alongside the date. \u201cNews headlines were always a big part of Keith\u2019s life,\u201d he says. \u201cWorks were untitled because he wanted you to see the date and look at the headlines from the New York<\/a> Post or New York Times.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked what Haring would be like now, he says: \u201cIt was a more analog world then. If you wanted to comment on the news, you had to put ink on paper. In today\u2019s lexicon, Keith would be a blogger and definitely a news junkie.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both moved to New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts. Oswald built the workshop in Haring\u2019s studio, every frame Haring used and installed Haring\u2019s exhibitions. Oswald\u2019s father was a carpenter, and Oswald taught Haring how to work with wood. The wood relief pieces in the sale, including an untitled 1980s work depicting a figure falling down a flight of steps (believed to be Haring\u2019s earliest use of the \u201cstaircase\u201d motif, common in his work), are estimated between $150,000 to $200,000 and could not have existed without Oswald\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

By 1985, Haring was famous and painted his self-portrait from a Polaroid, his face on the body of a sphinx. He invited Oswald to the studio and told him to take any work he wanted. Oswald chose that one.<\/p>\n

Keith Haring, Self-Portrait. Photograph: Courtesy of Kermit Oswald<\/p>\n

The pair called Haring\u2019s mounting fame \u201cthe tiger\u201d. \u201cYou work and work and work thinking you can finally climb on the tiger and ride it,\u201d Oswald says. \u201cBut once it actually happens, you just have to hold on for dear life, and the best you can do is hope to steer it a bit. The tiger, you can\u2019t handle it. The tiger takes you for a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oswald chose not to ride the tiger. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t a battle. There was no competition. You don\u2019t compete against your friends.\u201d He repeats a few times, unprompted: \u201cNo competition. As Keith got more successful, he bought me designer clothing for openings to make sure I looked good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oswald also learned Haring was gay in the course of their friendship when they were 16 or 17. \u201cWhen you love someone, you love all of them, their heart and soul, so I never questioned my love for Keith when I learned he was gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Haring with Kermit Oswald\u2019s son in 1989. Photograph: Courtesy of Kermit Oswald<\/p>\n

He liked Haring\u2019s longtime boyfriend, Juan Dubose, who was a DJ, and tells me Haring was inspired by house and new wave music of the time (in particular, Oswald says, Haring was a big Talking Heads fan). Oswald has hundreds of mixtapes from Haring during those years. Oswald\u2019s son is also gay and, incidentally, Haring is his son\u2019s godfather. Oswald believes Haring \u201cwas preparing me for something that was going to be a big part of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Haring died of Aids-related complications at 31 years old on 16 February 1990. \u201cI was with him the day before he died. He passed the day after my birthday, which still sometimes makes the day hard.\u201d Earlier, Oswald drove Haring\u2019s parents to the city when it became clear \u201cthat it was time, that things were getting bad\u201d.<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cI sat his family down and told them that Keith was HIV positive.\u201d Haring had asked Oswald to share the news with his parents.<\/p>\n

Speaking on why he\u2019s selling items from such a long, intimate friendship, Oswald says: \u201cI came to the realization that my relationship with these works is experiential. The work is just the physical result of it. I love the memory of being in the room when most of them were being done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, many would struggle to part with work of such an iconic artist, and of a friend. But I get the sense Oswald wants the work to end up in a museum, where it can be seen by others, though he never states this explicitly: \u201cYou don\u2019t own art, you are just a custodian of it.\u201d He says the \u201creal purpose\u201d of these works is \u201cto be out in the world to do what they\u2019re supposed to do\u201d,<\/p>\n

Keith Haring, Untitled. Photograph: Courtesy of Kermit Oswald<\/p>\n

The lingering popularity of Haring and his market demand, even 35 years later, is something Oswald seems reluctant to comment on. Kathleen Hart, the Sotheby\u2019s specialist on the sale, tells me the Haring market remains \u201cvery strong\u201d, with \u201ca premium for objects that are fresh\u201d.<\/p>\n

Oswald laughs. \u201cA lot of it was pieces of wood we found on the street. It was refuse. We were dumpster diving!\u201d He says: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing precious about art, especially Keith\u2019s, until you make it precious. To take something that\u2019s nothing and turn it into something precious, that is magic, and not many of us can do that. Keith could.\u201d In contrast, Jeffrey Deitch, the longtime art dealer who previously represented the Haring estate and co-authored a 2014 Rizzoli monograph on the artist, hopes a young family buys the crib. \u201cI hope it ends up in a nursery!\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s for children. It should be used.\u201d<\/p>\n

If these materials do not exactly reveal a new Keith Haring<\/a>, they at least help to give a more rounded, human picture of his life. Speaking on gentrified New York and today\u2019s art world, Oswald muses: \u201cI think New York would be different if he had lived, if all of them had lived. When I think about all those artists and dancers and musicians, if they had stayed, New York would be such a different place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oswald still paints, mostly watercolors, but he says his real art now is gardening and family. \u201cI didn\u2019t want the tiger to pollute my love for art,\u201d he says. He likes that interest in Haring endures. \u201cAs a society, we rarely have intimate contact with a great artist. Most of the time, we just have their work, and when you finally meet them, it\u2019s disappointing. But Haring is the opposite. Knowing him better helps you understand his work. And I can tell you he was a generous person, a great man and a great friend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The story of how Keith Haring came to paint a crib began on a quiet, ordinary afternoon in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-656471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}