The New York-based artist set the world alight with a compulsion to make work with a cause. Haring was born in Pennsylvania on 4 May 1958 to parents Joan and Allen, the oldest to three sisters. Taught to draw from a young age by his father, a keen cartoonist, his visual vernacular was heavily influenced by the social, cultural, and political environment of the time. Moving to New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). He was revered for his desire to make art accessible for all, whether through his now-famous Subway Drawings on New York’s train carriages, the protest posters he made and handed out at Aids rallies and anti-nuclear demonstrations.
