How Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring Forged a Friendship While Protesting the Killing of Michael Stewart

In an excerpt from The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York, author Elon Green recounts the young artist’s death at the hands of police and its impact on the art world. By Elon Green February 25, 2025 Both from Getty Images. Save this storySave Save this storySave At twenty-five years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay, and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of early 1980’s New York City. On September 15, 1983, witnesses say they saw him being brutally beaten by New York City Transit Authority police for allegedly tagging a 14th Street subway station wall. Witnesses reported officers beating him with billy clubs and choking him with a nightstick. Stewart arrived at Bellevue Hospital hog-tied with no heartbeat and died after thirteen days in a coma. This was, at that point, the most widely noticed act of police brutality in the city’s history. [All officers charged in Stewart’s death were acquitted.] Jean-Michel Basquiat was shocked by the beating of Michael Stewart. Known to have used the D train as a canvas, the handsome, dreadlocked Basquiat was aware that his fortunes...