Keith Haring Montreux, 1983 Print For Sale

Montreaux is a screenprint produced by the artist in 1983 for the Montreux Jazz Festival of the same year. This exuberant work is notable for the close relationship between art and music, both in its purpose for a Jazz festival, as well as Haring’s incomparable talent for conveying movement and rhythm through form and line.  

Haring’s spiralling, elastic, towering yellow figure of unrealistic proportions occupies the centre of the picture. Surrounding each curve and bend of the person are the artist’s signature short, concaved lines to signify movement. However, in this work the joy of dance and music is unparalleled, expressed in the corporeal form of the body, which surpasses all earthly laws of gravity and balance. In Haring’s looping spine and extended foot, the viewer feels the sways, twists and steps of the Jazz music. The saturation of colour in the screenprint – euphoric yellow and fuchsia pink - further heighten its expressive quality. 

A commission for one of the largest and most influential jazz festivals in the World, Montreux Festival De Jazz stands out as an important intertwining of Haring’s art with the wider art scene of which he was involved. Hip-Hop and Jazz were popular in Downtown New York where Haring lived and undoubtedly left a mark on Haring and his contemporary Jean-Michel Basqiuat. They frequented clubs such as the Mudd Club and Paradise Club, venues that played a new and experimental music.