On the Authenticity of the Subway Drawings

As a non-collecting museum that nearly always exhibits the work of living artists, BMAC rarely encounters difficult questions concerning the authenticity or provenance (ownership history) of the artwork we exhibit. Keith Haring’s subway drawings are another matter altogether.

It is well known that the iconic pop artist created many thousands of chalk drawings on black paper in New York City subway stations between 1980 and 1985. Those drawings were intended to be ephemeral, with no expectation that they would one day enter the marketplace or the realm of museum collections and exhibitions. As such, neither the artist nor his representatives maintained an authoritative record of the creation of each subway drawing. Nor did they have any means of tracking a drawing’s whereabouts once it disappeared from the subway station wall. Had it been torn down or papered over by the MTA? Was it surreptitiously removed by someone with an artistic or financial interest in its preservation? If so, where did it end up next?

The very nature of Haring’s extraordinary five-year public-art project renders these questions impossible to answer with certainty.

What then is a museum with little experience navigating such questions—but with a deep commitment to maintaining the trust placed in us to share important work that is what it purports to be—to do when presented with the apparent opportunity to bring formative works by one of the most admired artists of the 20th century to our community?

What we have done is examine the works ourselves, review their accompanying certificates of authenticity, and carefully consider the history of how they came into the care of the collector who has generously loaned them to us. Additionally, we have conferred with colleagues at other museums that have exhibited Haring’s subway drawings in the past and with the Moco Museum in Barcelona, where the very same works on view in Brattleboro will be shown later this year.

Based on this due diligence, we are highly confident that the works in our exhibition were in fact created by Haring. We are thrilled that they have survived to this day, and we are delighted to share them with you.

— Danny Lichtenfeld, Director

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