New Treasures of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Discovered

In 1979, Alexis Adler was the girlfriend of a then unknown artist, namely, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The duo lived together in Adler’s East Village home and Basquiat soon began to transform the walls, doors and even the radiator into works of art. The couple broke up a year later, and Basquiat passed away in 1988, and Adler, now an embryologist at New York University, purchased the apartment the two once inhabitated where Basquiat’s works remain, as he left them so many years ago. To not paint over the works Basquiat birthed in that apartment, has probably been one of the best decisions that Adler has ever made, as well as storing his notebooks, postcards, painted clothes, photographs and drawings on yellow legal paper. Adler has now begun to assemble a group of advisors to assist in sorting through it all, in preparation for a book on the collection and a possible exhibition and sale. “Part of the issue has been that I am a working biologist who has raised two kids on my own and have not had time or energy to deal with it,” Adler said. “Now is the time, however.” True Basquiat fans wait with baited breath.

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