Name: The Story Of Red And Blue 13
Brand: Keith Haring
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of Keith Haring's The Story Of Red And Blue 13 (signed) is estimated to be worth between £3,250 and £4,900. This lithograph print, created in 1989, has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 9%. This work has an auction history of three total sales since its entry to the market in June 2014. Over the past five years, the hammer price has ranged from £1,556 in July 2017 to £4,900 in October 2021. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 90.

Meaning & Analysis

Presented in the format of a children’s storybook, The Story Of Red And Blue 13 is a print from Keith Haring’s The Story Of Red And Blue series from 1989. The print is a signed colour lithograph and is a limited edition of 90.

Representative of Haring’s desire to create a visual language that appealed to both children and adults alike, the series is formed of a variety of simplified images reminiscent of children’s fictional characters. Throughout the series Haring limits his colour palette to bright red and blue and renders each image in his distinctive linear style with black rounded lines.

The Story Of Red And Blue 13 is the first image in the series that combines both red and blue brushstrokes alongside Haring’s trademark, bold lines. This print shows an abstracted image of a person’s face, with its features in unusual positions, working to create a comical and playful image.

Across the first half of the series, each print alternates in colour between red and blue and by this point in the series, the two colours appear together in the prints. In each print Haring uses simplified and generic pictograms to produce the effect of a children’s story book without a sensical storyline, where instead the story seems to focus abstractly on the colours red and blue.

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