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"It Could Have Been Me": The 1983 Death Of A Nyc Graffiti Artist, Erik Nielson

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

"It could have been me. It could have been me."
These were the words uttered by painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was deeply shaken after he heard the story of a black graffiti artist who was beaten to death by New York City police. Seeing his own life reflected in the death of a fellow artist, Basquiat went on to create Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart), not only to commemorate the young man's death, but also to challenge the state-sanctioned brutality that men of color could face for pursuing their art in public spaces.

John Dos Passos And His World, University Of Richmond Museums

Exhibition Brochures

John Dos Passos and His World

September 26 to December 07, 2003

Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums

Introduction

One of America's most innovative writers, John Dos Passos (1896-1970) also completed more than four hundred paintings and drawings that chronicle his life's journeys. In fifty years, Dos Passos wrote forty-two literary works, and his novels Manhattan Transfer (1925) and the trilogy U.S.A. (published together in 1938) provide a panoramic social history of the first three decades of the twentieth century. Similarly, his paintings captured the times in which he lived and addressed the world around him, in landscapes from …