Keith Haring Untitled (Dolphin) (Littman p.84) For Sale

Untitled is a monochrome lithograph created by the artist in 1987. Featuring Haring’s idiosyncratic bold lines and matchstick figure, it depicts a person riding a dolphin: an image that had famously appeared in the artist’s Subway Drawings, which skyrocketed the Pop artist to fame. 

Throughout his brief yet prolific career, man and animal are often seen side by side. Perhaps most widely recognised are Haring’s barking dogs: a symbol of oppression and violence. Yet here, the artist turns to another highly intelligent animal, the dolphin, often associated with harmony, peace and joy. In Haring’s picture the man and dolphin appear in perfect coexistence: the man rides freely without holding onto the dolphin, and the dolphin can be seen whistling with an open mouth. The artist’s child-like,  cartoonish expression – Haring’s figure is faceless and genderless, and the dolphin is non-realistic, matches the simple delight in appreciating nature and its creatures. In the lower half of the print fellow figures cheer the man and dolphin on, adding to the print's allegorical message that community, and caring for animals are ways of bettering the world as a whole.