Keith Haring Pop Shop II For Sale

Pop Shop II is a portfolio of four screenprints created by the artist in 1988. Titled after Haring’s shop of the same name in New York’s SoHo district, which opened in 1986, the series exemplifies the vivid and playful style for which the artist had become synonymous with at the time.  

Compared to the primary colours of Pop Shop Quad I, In Pop Shop Quad II makes use of a neon palette in bright pink. Like the rest of the series however, Haring’s matchstick figures are characterised by movement and joy, always stretching, bending and waving beyond realistic human capacity: in plate two, a coral figure appears to dance on water, reminiscent of the Biblical miracle of Jesus walking on water. 

Haring’s figures have no features or visible genders, yet their personality is expressed through the dynamism of Haring’s colour and line. When viewed in totality, the order of Haring’s suite expresses careful coordination and narrative: the first and final plate feature two figures merging into one, and the panels of three colours (pink, blue, and yellow) are altered each time in a harmonious way. 

Haring’s Pop Shop was at the intersection of art and commerce or retail. Though it was criticised at the time for its crass commercialisation, Haring’s goal was to bring his art to as many people as possible. For Simon Oldfield, the Pop Shop ‘ushered in a new era and commented on contemporary culture in a way nobody else got close to. Pop shop was an act of genius. It took Warhol’s Factory to the street'.