Keith Haring mural auctioned for B34mn
Diane Rode, a senior director at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, said she remembers Keith Haring’s energy as he painted a mural before a crowd of patients in 1986.
“When children are very sick, experiencing enormous amounts of pain, anxiety, fear, to experience something like that, it creates a field of inspiration and hope,” Rode said in an interview.
More than 30 years later, the mural, roughly 5.18m wide and about 1.22m tall, was auctioned last week for US$945,000 (34 million baht) by Sotheby’s in New York. A portion of its proceeds is going towards programming and clinical care at the Mount Sinai children’s hospital and citywide outpatient locations.
The work, Mural For The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, was estimated to sell for $500,000 to $700,000, Nicole Schloss, the Sotheby’s head of contemporary art day sale, said.
“A work like this really underscores how much he valued children, how much he wanted to bring joy to the world,” Schloss said.
The hospital demolished its paediatrics building, which housed the mural, in 1989, to build a new main campus. Rode said a hospital staffer preserved the five-part mural, and that it has remained out of public view.
Haring created nearly 50 public works throughout the 1980s. Some — like a Boys’ Club mural and a mural at Grace House youth centre, both in New York — have been rescued before building demolition. Haring had also created works along the outside of the 26.8m stairwell of Necker-Enfants Malades hospital, in Paris; the hallway walls of Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, New York; and the interior of the Grady Hospital paediatric emergency room, in Atlanta.
“We are generally not in favour of these works being sold and going into private hands because that’s not what they were meant to be,” Gil Vazquez, the executive director of the Haring Foundation, said.
But Vazquez said he was grateful the mural remained intact and that the sale would help children.
“This sale continues that spirit of generosity,” Vazquez said, referring to Haring. “We’re happy about it.”