Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Dog Leg Study) is a dense, intellectually charged composition that exemplifies the artist’s lifelong fusion of anatomy, history, power, and language. Built around a fractured diagram of a dog’s leg, the image operates simultaneously as a scientific study and a metaphorical device, using skeletal fragments, joints, arrows, and handwritten annotations to explore systems of control, violence, and belief.

Rendered in Basquiat’s signature visual vocabulary—urgent line work, raw figuration, scrawled text, symbols, and uneven color accents—the print collapses distinctions between textbook illustration, street graffiti, and political manifesto. References to “liberty,” “anatomy,” religion, and historical events coexist with crude figures and anatomical schematics, suggesting how bodies—particularly Black bodies—are examined, classified, and exploited by institutional power. The recurring dog-leg motif becomes a stand-in for vulnerability and leverage, reinforcing Basquiat’s recurring themes of domination, resistance, and survival.

The screen print medium amplifies the graphic immediacy of the work while preserving the improvisational energy of Basquiat’s hand. Negative space plays an active role, allowing the eye to move between fragments of text and image, mirroring the artist’s nonlinear approach to history and knowledge. Produced posthumously from the original drawing, the edition retains the raw urgency of Basquiat’s mark-making while offering a refined, collectible format.

Untitled (Dog Leg Study) stands as a powerful example of Basquiat’s ability to transform anatomical study into cultural critique—merging intellect, instinct, and iconography into a work that remains confrontational, poetic, and unmistakably his. For more information on