Jean-Michel Basquiat — The Assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald For Sale

The Assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald

The Assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald is a unique 1979 work combining print, applied collage, and ink, among the earliest surviving pieces from Basquiat's practice. It predates his emergence as a gallery artist by several years, dating from the period when he was known — if at all — through the SAMO© graffiti project he ran with collaborator Al Diaz across lower Manhattan.

The subject, the on-camera shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald — the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy — by Jack Ruby in 1963, reflects an early fascination with American violence, media spectacle, and historical trauma that would recur throughout Basquiat's mature work, where public figures and news imagery are consistently recontextualized as raw material for social commentary. The mixed collage-and-print technique, rather than a single unified medium, is characteristic of his early experimental approach, predating the oil-stick-and-canvas vocabulary of his best-known paintings. Works from this earliest period of Basquiat's practice are exceptionally scarce on the market, given how little survives from before his first gallery representation.

As a unique work from 1979, this piece offers a rare window into Basquiat's practice several years before his first gallery representation, when his visual language was still being formed — a genuine opportunity for collectors and institutions seeking an authenticated example of his pre-fame output, a category with very limited surviving material available for acquisition.

Guy Hepner offers this unique early Basquiat work for sale, with supporting provenance documentation. Serious collectors and institutions interested in acquiring this historically significant piece are invited to contact our New York gallery directly to discuss terms.