Name: Dr Winkies Wedding Invitation
Brand: Keith Haring
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of Keith Haring's Dr Winkies Wedding Invitation (signed) is estimated to be worth between £6,500 and £10,000. This screenprint, created in 1988, has shown consistent value growth and has an auction history of 12 total sales since its entry to the market in September 2013. In the past five years, the hammer price has ranged from £3,645 in March 2021 to £10,414 in September 2023. The average annual growth rate of this work is 8%. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 125.

Meaning & Analysis

This signed screen print from 1988 is a limited edition of 100 by Keith Haring. Unusual for having been printed onto canvas rather than paper, Dr Winkie’s Wedding Invitation shows two figures joined by a head in which beats a red love heart. Surrounded by Haring’s signature energy lines, the androgynous figures hold hands and dance against a pink background in a joyful celebration of love and energy.

Created as a wedding announcement for the union of Estefania Kong and Lawrence ‘Dr. Winkie’ Lin, this print is rendered in Haring’s trademark figurative style with vivid, contrasting colours and bold outlines. Throughout his artistic oeuvre, Haring used the motif of conjoined genderless figures as a symbol for the power of working together. Thus, this joyful pictogram is apt for an invitation to a wedding, where the two figures in the image come together to form a beating heart.

Though Haring had experimented with print techniques such as lithography in the late 1970s it wasn’t until 1983 that he began making screen prints. Representing the union of Haring’s painting and printing practice, it is an important part of his catalogue raisonné and demonstrates the essential importance of the drawn line in his work.

Keith Haring was a luminary of the 1980s downtown New York scene. His distinctive visual language pioneered one-line Pop Art drawings and he has been famed for his colourful, playful imagery. Haring's iconic energetic motifs and figures were dedicated to influencing social change, and particularly challenging stigma around the AIDS epidemic. Haring also pushed for the accessibility of art by opening Pop Shops in New York and Japan, selling a range of ephemera starting from as little as 50 cents. Haring's legacy has been cemented in the art-activism scene and is a testament to power of art to inspire social change