Keith Haring Totem For Sale

Keith Haring: Totem Series

Keith Haring's Totem series represents a pivotal convergence of the artist's street art sensibility with fine art materiality, created during the final years of his career from 1988 to 1989. These works synthesize Haring's iconic visual vocabulary—his signature radiant babies, barking dogs, and interlocking figures—into vertical compositions that reference both urban signage and indigenous artistic traditions. The series demonstrates Haring's commitment to making art accessible across multiple formats and price points, from hand-painted sculptures to editioned prints, while maintaining the raw energy and social consciousness that defined his practice.

The Totem series showcases Haring's versatility across media, executed in concrete, wood, and as screenprints. The sculptural versions—particularly the Totem (Wood) and Totem (Concrete)—represent Haring's engagement with three-dimensional form and his desire to transform his two-dimensional hieroglyphic language into tactile, architectural objects. These pieces maintain the artist's characteristic bold contours and symbolic imagery while introducing new considerations of mass, texture, and spatial presence. The Totem Print (1989) distills these concepts into a democratic, editioned format, exemplifying Haring's philosophy that art should circulate widely rather than remain in exclusive collections.

From a market perspective, works from the Totem series have demonstrated strong collector demand and consistent appreciation, particularly given their creation during Haring's most conceptually mature period. The multi-media approach offers collectors entry points across various price ranges while maintaining the series' cohesive artistic vision. Sculptural examples are especially sought-after, as Haring's three-dimensional works represent a smaller percentage of his overall output. The 1989 pieces carry additional significance as they were created shortly before the artist's death in 1990, representing some of his final realized concepts.

For inquiries regarding availability and provenance of works from Keith Haring's Totem series, Guy Hepner maintains expertise in post-war and contemporary art with particular specialization in Haring's market.