Jean Michael Basquiat is one of the best known artists of his generation and his widely considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His careering art spanned the late 1970s through the 1980s until his death in 1988 at the age of 27. His works are edgy and raw and through a bold sense of color and composition. He maintains a fine balance between seemingly contradictory forces, such as control and spontaneity menace and wit, urban imagery, and primitivism.