{"id":955,"date":"2026-04-22T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/?p=955"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T11:00:00","slug":"keith-harings-ordinary-and-extraordinary-to-do-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/?p=955","title":{"rendered":"Keith Haring’s ordinary and extraordinary to-do list"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Ca. 1985:<\/strong> Keith Haring painted the Swatch’s colorful dials in an early version of the artist’s now widely known collaboration with Commerce.
\n Photo: Provided by Keith Haring Foundation Archives \u00a9 Keith Haring Foundation<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

When it comes to Keith Haring, it’s easy to imagine a loose, spontaneous artist who chalks his way through the subway in bursts of desperate inspiration, before heading off to Paradise Garage with Grace Jones. A look into his archives shows that this is not the case. He created his own to-do list every morning and crossed items off as he completed them with the same candor of a middle manager. Shopping list tasks like “Ceramic markers” and “Order canvas” sit alongside reminders like “Paint my sister’s baby furniture.”<\/p>\n

But look a little closer, and between these mundane lines you’ll see another part of the job: the busyness of being a celebrity. \u201cCall Yoko,\u201d \u201cWrite Whoopi,\u201d \u201cJenny Holzer 3:30.\u201d A mesmerizing note from 1984 read “Stephen Jobs, Apple Computer, California” and included a Cupertino phone number. It’s a vivid picture of 1980s-style creative industry success. There are jobs to be done, like managing the day-to-day art celebrities and finalizing the colors for the pop shop’s logo. Then you call your friend Madonna’s office to secure tickets for her next show. (It was at Radio City Music Hall on the Virgin Tour in 1985, when the Beastie Boys opened for her.) In these papers, featured here for the first time, we encounter lasting fame (“Andy” comes up a lot), a more art insider fame (John Giorno), and a celebrity reminiscent of New York at the time. downtown<\/em> It meant something very specific (“Michael Musto Interview”).<\/p>\n

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Approximately 400 of these lists are preserved in the Keith Haring Foundation archives, most dating from the mid-to-late 1980s. Some of them mention “Julia” and that’s Julia Gruen. Julia Gruen served as Haring’s studio manager from 1984 until his death six years later, and ran Haring’s foundation for decades afterward. She currently serves as the foundation’s board chair. “Keith didn’t always come to the studio until noon,” she explained when I asked about the list recently. “During the day, he was trying to accomplish a lot of tasks that were more business-oriented. When he took notes on the T-shirt design, he felt like it had a deadline. That’s what he tried to focus on at the beginning of the day.” “He liked having people come to his studio, so people would often stop by. So he’d do some of the business side of things, the administrative side of things, and then hang out with friends, go out to lunch, things like that. As the day progressed, he got to the point where he wanted to or had to paint or paint, and a lot of that happened at night.” Clubbing and nightlife took place after that second shift. “I worked a normal day, usually leaving at 6 or 7 o’clock, and when I came back the next day at 10 o’clock there were three or four pictures on the wall that he had done the night before.” From just one night? “In the subway station, it was against the law, so he learned to work quickly.”<\/p>\n

It seems that Haring really liked the busy daily work. “And unlike other artists,” Gruen said, “he was very organized in the studio. He was very organized. Not obsessive, but definitely neat. And he was very disciplined about getting his work done. Not just what was on his to-do list, but also creating.” That productivity and work ethic is perhaps one of the reasons he still attracts attention. Although Haring died at the age of 31, after a career that lasted virtually only a little over a decade, he left behind a vast body of vibrant artwork, from artwork to posters to pop shop buttons. “I don’t want to make him seem like a saint, because he wasn’t a saint,” Gruen said. “But when I was interested in something, whether it was painting, giving gifts to people, or creating logos for charities I worked with, I always had to do what I had to do.”<\/p>\n

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\n Ca. 1984: <\/strong>Richard Avedon photographed Brooke Shields with Haring’s artwork for the poster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n 1984: <\/strong>Around this time, during a party at Yoko Ono’s Dakota apartment, Steve Jobs taught Haring, Andy Warhol, and Kenny Scharf how to use the Macintosh he had given Sean Lennon for his ninth birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n 1985:<\/strong> Lippincott Sculpture in Connecticut created Haring’s large metal work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n 1987: <\/strong>Stephen Sprouse’s Fall 1988 collection included Haring-print fabrics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Ca. 1987: <\/strong>The condom drawing and safe sex logo were among the AIDS activism projects he did for groups like ACT UP. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and died in 1990 at the age of 31.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Ca. 1986:<\/strong> “Jan” refers to Dutch artist Jan Rothhuizen, who used that spelling as an early graffiti tag. “I wanted American toothpaste,” he says today. When Haring visited Amsterdam, “I thought it was interesting and they brought it with me.” Rothhuizen remembers it as a crest, not an aim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Undated, 1980s: <\/strong>Pioneering video artist Nam June Paik organized a Whitney retrospective in 1982. “Benny” was probably Herring’s assistant, Benny Soto.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Photo: Provided by Keith Haring Foundation Archives \u00a9 Keith Haring Foundation<\/p>\n