When Keith Haring was invited to the wedding of Madonna and Sean Penn in 1985, he took Andy Warhol as his plus one.
In the 1980s, everyone wanted to know Keith, even the police officers who were sent out to arrest him as he filled empty poster spaces with his drawings in New York City’s subway stations.
“More than once, I’ve been taken to a station handcuffed by a cop who realised, much to his dismay, that the other cops in the precinct are my fans and were anxious to meet me and shake my hand,” said the graffiti artist and social activist from Pennsylvania.
Four decades later and that adoration has not waned. Keith’s work, perhaps best known for its iconic barking dog and radiant baby motifs, is as hip and fresh as ever.
During his lifetime, Keith partnered with brands including Swatch watches and Absolut vodka and entered into artistic collaborations with Vivienne Westwood, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary and Yoko Ono.
Now it is Primark’s turn to affiliate itself with the Keith Haring legacy, with trainers, hoodies, T-shirts and bags all bearing those energetic little symbols that made his work so distinctive.
Keith attended the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh but dropped out within a year when he realised commercial art was not for him.
He also knew art galleries weren’t for him either and after moving to New York the city itself became his canvas, painting on tarpaulin laid out on the pavement, the sides of buildings and the walls of nightclubs.
“All kinds of people would stop and look at the huge drawing and many were eager to comment on their feelings toward it,” he said.
“This was the first time I realised how many people could enjoy art if they were given the chance. These were not the people I saw in the museums or in the galleries but a cross-section of humanity that cut across all boundaries.”
Keith died in 1990 aged just 31, but not before he had painted his funny little figures on the Berlin Wall, on fishermen’s huts in Brazil, at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris and in public places the world over.
For a display closer to home, pop into a Primark on the high street, where Keith’s art is there for anyone to see, just as he wanted.
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