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Lot Essay
In this larger than life-size painting, Jean-Michel Basquiat composes an essay to his enduring love affair with music. Across the top of the canvas, the name “Floyd O’Brien” is held within quotation marks acting as the title of his treatise. The phrase “He has Casey improvise a counter melody” is underscored by a line of red paint and below this line, a list repeats variations of the words “Victor” and “Bluebird,” with the first word followed by a series of different numbers. The scrawl of Basquiat’s handwriting communicates a purposeful naiveté, intentionally childlike in a masterful display of control by the then-twenty-five-year-old artist. But who are these elusive figures, Victor, Bluebird, the person directing Casey and even Casey himself? Floyd O’Brien, whose name graces the top of the canvas, was a jazz trombonist who played across the United States in the 1920s through the 1950s. Despite being featured on the recordings of many jazz greats, including pianist and singer “Fats Waller” (whose name gives the painting its title), O’Brien only twice released his own records, and both times credit was given to another musician. Both Victor and Bluebird were popular record labels releasing jazz music during this time. Casey probably refers to the jazz guitarist Al Casey, who performed with O’Brien and Waller on many records. The litany of numbers indicates the serial numbers for specific recordings, with 25488 referencing the Victor catalogue number for the track “Hallelujah Things Look Rosy Now” and 25779 & 254826 (the actual number is 24826) refers to two versions of the song “Honeysuckle Rose.”
Music, and jazz in particular, was crucial to Basquiat’s work as an artist. His art offered a vibrant visual counterpart for the genre’s emphasis on improvisation, nonlinear structure and creative sampling of previous works. Basquiat frequently celebrated his favorite jazz heroes, such as Charlie Parker through portraits dedicated to them, or text fragments alluding to them, such as is the case with the present work. In paintings like Discography I and Discography II, two works from 1983, Basquiat approached each of the two canvases in a similar manner to Fats II. The words “Miles Davis All Stars” and “Charlie Parker Ree Boppers,” respectively, are written in white letters against both black canvases, and beneath these titles, a list of musicians, including Miles Dizzy Gillespie, Sadik Hakim, and Curly Russell are written like liner notes and followed by song titles like “Billies Bounce.”—the artist purposefully leaving out proper punctuation marks. Rather than the casual reference to these musicians of an earlier generation, these names were loaded with meaning for the young artist. As curator Richard Marshall writes in the catalogue accompanying the artist’s 1993 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Basquiat “continually selected and injected into his works words which held charged references and meaning—particularly to his deep-rooted concerns about race, human rights, the creation of power and wealth, and the control and valuation of natural elements, animals, and produce—all this in addition to the references to his ethnic heritage, popular culture and respected of infamous figures from history and the entertainment world” (R. Marshall, “Repelling Ghosts,” in Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1993, p. 21).
In this way, Basquiat’s references to jazz musicians parallels paintings in which the artist pays tribute to his other heroes; famous athletes, boxers, baseball players and a pantheon of personal icons, many of whom struggled to find the recognition of their white counterparts. Floyd O’Brien was a case in point as despite being featured on the records of many jazz greats, he did get achieve the credit that many thought he deserved. Thus, to put O’Brien’s name at the top of the painting, underlined, in the same manner in which he wrote Charlie Parker and Miles Davis in Discography I and Discography II, is to imbue the forgotten jazz player with the same level of reverence for the success he did not achieve due to the obstacles he faced as a black musician in the early twentieth century.
As well as paying homage to his musical heroes, works such as Fats II also try to replicate in a visual way, the unique structure of jazz music. The art historian Robert Farris Thompson was the first to connect Basquiat’s paintings to jazz music for their form as much of their content. Thompson has, rather eloquently, written. “Basquiat’s blues typography, at once interruptive and complete, makes visual black song, with equivalents to pause, shout, spacing and breath” (R. Farris Thompson, “Activating Heaven: The Incantatory Art of Jean Michel Basquiat,” in Jean Michel Basquiat, exh. cat. Mary Boone Michael Werner Gallery, New York, 1985, n.p.).
Almost always autobiographical in some way, Basquiat’s paintings are pervaded with the sense that the artist was talking to himself, exorcising demons, exposing uncomfortable truths and trying to explain the way of things to himself—an effort that became increasingly pronounced at this time. Executed in a restrained palette over a background of painterly layers and with bold iconography, this dramatic and poignant painting demonstrates the influence of other trailblazing African American in Basquiat’s career. When questioned about his method of constructing an image, Basquiat once said, “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life” (J. M. Basquiat, quoted in Basquiat, exh. cat., Trieste, Museo Revoltella, 1999, p. LXVII).
Music, and jazz in particular, was crucial to Basquiat’s work as an artist. His art offered a vibrant visual counterpart for the genre’s emphasis on improvisation, nonlinear structure and creative sampling of previous works. Basquiat frequently celebrated his favorite jazz heroes, such as Charlie Parker through portraits dedicated to them, or text fragments alluding to them, such as is the case with the present work. In paintings like Discography I and Discography II, two works from 1983, Basquiat approached each of the two canvases in a similar manner to Fats II. The words “Miles Davis All Stars” and “Charlie Parker Ree Boppers,” respectively, are written in white letters against both black canvases, and beneath these titles, a list of musicians, including Miles Dizzy Gillespie, Sadik Hakim, and Curly Russell are written like liner notes and followed by song titles like “Billies Bounce.”—the artist purposefully leaving out proper punctuation marks. Rather than the casual reference to these musicians of an earlier generation, these names were loaded with meaning for the young artist. As curator Richard Marshall writes in the catalogue accompanying the artist’s 1993 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Basquiat “continually selected and injected into his works words which held charged references and meaning—particularly to his deep-rooted concerns about race, human rights, the creation of power and wealth, and the control and valuation of natural elements, animals, and produce—all this in addition to the references to his ethnic heritage, popular culture and respected of infamous figures from history and the entertainment world” (R. Marshall, “Repelling Ghosts,” in Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1993, p. 21).
In this way, Basquiat’s references to jazz musicians parallels paintings in which the artist pays tribute to his other heroes; famous athletes, boxers, baseball players and a pantheon of personal icons, many of whom struggled to find the recognition of their white counterparts. Floyd O’Brien was a case in point as despite being featured on the records of many jazz greats, he did get achieve the credit that many thought he deserved. Thus, to put O’Brien’s name at the top of the painting, underlined, in the same manner in which he wrote Charlie Parker and Miles Davis in Discography I and Discography II, is to imbue the forgotten jazz player with the same level of reverence for the success he did not achieve due to the obstacles he faced as a black musician in the early twentieth century.
As well as paying homage to his musical heroes, works such as Fats II also try to replicate in a visual way, the unique structure of jazz music. The art historian Robert Farris Thompson was the first to connect Basquiat’s paintings to jazz music for their form as much of their content. Thompson has, rather eloquently, written. “Basquiat’s blues typography, at once interruptive and complete, makes visual black song, with equivalents to pause, shout, spacing and breath” (R. Farris Thompson, “Activating Heaven: The Incantatory Art of Jean Michel Basquiat,” in Jean Michel Basquiat, exh. cat. Mary Boone Michael Werner Gallery, New York, 1985, n.p.).
Almost always autobiographical in some way, Basquiat’s paintings are pervaded with the sense that the artist was talking to himself, exorcising demons, exposing uncomfortable truths and trying to explain the way of things to himself—an effort that became increasingly pronounced at this time. Executed in a restrained palette over a background of painterly layers and with bold iconography, this dramatic and poignant painting demonstrates the influence of other trailblazing African American in Basquiat’s career. When questioned about his method of constructing an image, Basquiat once said, “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life” (J. M. Basquiat, quoted in Basquiat, exh. cat., Trieste, Museo Revoltella, 1999, p. LXVII).