For The Love of Basquiat: 25 Years After His Drug Overdose\

VANITY FAIR
By Ingrid Sischy

ELECTRIC DUO Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat
with their collaborative paintings at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1985.

NEW YORK---More than 25 years after Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a drug overdose, at 27, his most devoted collectors, Lenore and Herbert Schorr, are sharing their treasures in a show at New York’s Acquavella Galleries. Their memories of the artist, a surrogate son, illuminate his struggle to be seen. After he’d lost faith in the art-world establishment, Basquiat even asked Herb, a scientist and self-described “nerd,” to take over as his dealer. No fool, Herb, he did not give up his day job. What he did do, though, with Lenore, was build an unparalleled collection of Basquiat’s work, some of it bought directly from the artist’s studio, all of it clearly chosen with eyes that knew what they were looking at. [link]