Dos Cabezas

Dos Cabezas ([ˈdos kaˈβesas], "two heads") is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. The double portrait resulted from Basquiat's first formal meeting with his idol, American pop artist Andy Warhol.

Dos Cabezas
Artist	Jean-Michel Basquiat
Year	1982
Movement	Neo-expressionism
Dimensions	151.8 cm × 154 cm (59.75 in × 60.5 in)
Location	Private collection

History

Basquiat first met Andy Warhol when he sold him a postcard in 1979.^[1] Later, when Basquiat was selling painted sweatshirts, he went to the Factory and Warhol purchased some. "I just wanted to meet him, he was an art hero of mine," Basquiat recalled.^[2] Bruno Bischofberger became Basquiat's art dealer and organized a one-man show in his Zurich gallery in September 1982.^[3] Bischofberger, who also represented Warhol, arranged a lunch meeting between the two artists on October 4, 1982.^[4][5] Warhol documented the meeting in a diary entry, which was posthumously published in The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989):

Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50). He brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him. He's the kid who used the name "Samo" when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts, and I'd give him $10 here and there…He was just one of those kids who drove me crazy. He's black but some people say he's Puerto Rican so I don't know. And then Bruno discovered him and now he’s on Easy Street. He's got a great loft on Christie Street. He was a middle-class Brooklyn kid—I mean, he went to college and things—and he was trying to be like that, painting in the Greenwich Village. And so had lunch for them and then I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together. And I mean, just getting to Christie Street must have taken an hour. He told me his assistant painted it.^[6]

Dos Cabezas, meaning "two heads" in Spanish, is based on the self-portrait Warhol took with Basquiat.^[7] The artwork ignited a close friendship between them which led to a collaboration on numerous paintings.^[7] Warhol used a Polaroid he took of Basquiat to create the silkscreen portrait Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982) using his piss painting technique.^[8] Although Basquiat and Warhol created several portraits of each other in the following years, Dos Cabezas is their only joint portrait. It sold for $7 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary evening sale in November 2010.^[9]

Exhibitions

Dos Cabezas has been exhibited at the following art institutions:

• Jean-Michel Basquiat at Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, October 1992–February 1993; The Menil Collection in Houston, March–May 1993; Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, May–August 1993; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama, November 1993–January 1994.^[10]
• Basquiat at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, March–June 2005; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, July–October 2005; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 2005–February 2006.^[10]
• Basquiat: Boom for Real at the Barbican in London, September 2017–January 2018.^[11]
• Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Brant Foundation Study Center in the East Village, March–May 2019.^[12]

See also

• List of paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat
• 1982 in art

References

1. Brumfitt, Stuart (September 19, 2017). "New York Inspiration | Tales from Teen Basquiat's Best Friend". Amuse. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
2. The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century: 1900-1929. Taylor & Francis. 2002. p. 2547. ISBN 978-1-57958-290-6.
3. Hoban, Phoebe (1998). Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Internet Archive. New York : Viking. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-670-85477-6.
4. Faughnan, Ally (May 28, 2019). "The best, worst, and weirdest parts of Warhol and Basquiat's friendship". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
5. "Collabs origin | Galerie Bruno Bischofberger". GALERIE BRUNO BISCHOFBERGER (in German). Retrieved 2023-12-10.
6. Warhol, Andy; Hackett, Pat (1989). The Andy Warhol diaries. The Archive of Contemporary Music. New York, NY : Warner Books. p. 462. ISBN 978-0-446-51426-2.
7. "Warhol and Basquiat". Phillips. July 13, 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
8. McGreevy, Nora (October 6, 2021). "Why Andy Warhol Peed on This Portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2021-10-07.
9. Vogel, Carol (November 10, 2010). "Lichtenstein Tops Warhol in Auction at Christie's". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
10. "Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dos Cabezas". Christie's. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
11. "Boom for Real: Basquiat comes to London". Christie's. October 1, 2017. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
12. Wolf, Michael (April 12, 2019). "Warhol at the Whitney, Basquiat at the Brant and Their Collaboration". Archived from the original on 2019-04-16. Retrieved 2021-04-05.