Dos Cabezas ([ˈdos kaˈβesas], "two heads") is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. The double portrait resulted from Basquiat's first formal meeting with his idol, American pop artist Andy Warhol.
| Dos Cabezas | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Jean-Michel Basquiat |
| Year | 1982 |
| Movement | Neo-expressionism |
| Dimensions | 151.8 cm × 154 cm (59.75 in × 60.5 in) |
| Location | Private collection |
History
Basquiat first met Andy Warhol when he sold him a postcard in 1979.[1] Later, when Basquiat was selling painted sweatshirts, he went to the Factory and Warhol purchased some. "I just wanted to meet him, he was an art hero of mine," Basquiat recalled.[2] Bruno Bischofberger became Basquiat's art dealer and organized a one-man show in his Zurich gallery in September 1982.[3] Bischofberger, who also represented Warhol, arranged a lunch meeting between the two artists on October 4, 1982.[4][5] Warhol documented the meeting in a diary entry, which was posthumously published in The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989):
Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50). He brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him. He's the kid who used the name "Samo" when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts, and I'd give him $10 here and there…He was just one of those kids who drove me crazy. He's black but some people say he's Puerto Rican so I don't know. And then Bruno discovered him and now he’s on Easy Street. He's got a great loft on Christie Street. He was a middle-class Brooklyn kid—I mean, he went to college and things—and he was trying to be like that, painting in the Greenwich Village. And so had lunch for them and then I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together. And I mean, just getting to Christie Street must have taken an hour. He told me his assistant painted it.[6]
Dos Cabezas, meaning "two heads" in Spanish, is based on the self-portrait Warhol took with Basquiat.[7] The artwork ignited a close friendship between them which led to a collaboration on numerous paintings.[7] Warhol used a Polaroid he took of Basquiat to create the silkscreen portrait Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982) using his piss painting technique.[8] Although Basquiat and Warhol created several portraits of each other in the following years, Dos Cabezas is their only joint portrait. It sold for $7 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary evening sale in November 2010.[9]
Exhibitions
Dos Cabezas has been exhibited at the following art institutions:
- Jean-Michel Basquiat at Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, October 1992–February 1993; The Menil Collection in Houston, March–May 1993; Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, May–August 1993; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama, November 1993–January 1994.[10]
- Basquiat at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, March–June 2005; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, July–October 2005; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 2005–February 2006.[10]
- Basquiat: Boom for Real at the Barbican in London, September 2017–January 2018.[11]
- Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Brant Foundation Study Center in the East Village, March–May 2019.[12]