Keith Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. He grew up with his mother and father, Joan Haring and Allen Haring. He also had three younger sisters: Kay, Karen and Kristen. From an early age Haring was intrested in art. From 1976 to 1978 he studied commercial art at the Ivy school of Proffessional Art. Losing intrest in commercial art he moved onto study Fine Arts.
When he was 19, in 1978, Haring moved to New York City, where he was inspired by graffiti art and studied the School of Visual Arts. He was first noticed because of his public art in subways. These were his first recognised pieces of Pop Art. In 1980 he organised exhibitions for Club 57 and took part in many other gallery exhibitions.
In 1985 Haring started to paint on canvas and became involved in the music scene, apearing on the music channel MTV and working with Grace Jones and personal friend Madonna. He opened a shop in 1986 called Pop Shop, that focused on selling merchandise of his iconic artwork. This included T-shirts, toys, posters and other objects displaying his art. Harings aim was to break the barriers between high and low art, aiming to make artwork afordable and accessible to everyone.
He continued working with various companies and became involved in many causes such as AIDs awarness and the drug problems of the time, before dying at the age of 31 on Feburary the 16th 1990.
