Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the best-known artists of his generation and is widely considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His works are edgy and raw and through a bold sense of color and composition, he maintains a fine balance between seemingly contradictory forces such as control and spontaneity, menace and wit, urban imagery, and primitivism.

The conjunction of various media is an integral element of Basquiat’s art. His paintings are typically covered with text and codes of all kinds: words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, diagrams, and more, and featured multi-panel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage, and imagery.

The Blackwing 57 is a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat and his boundary-pushing art. The number 57 is a reference to 57 Great Jones Street in New York City, where Basquiat created some of his best-known works.

Explore the Vol. 57 – Basquiat collection:

• Special-edition Vol. 57 Pencil features a section of one of Basquiat’s untitled skull paintings wrapped around the barrel, Basquiat’s iconic crown printed on the ferrule, and contains our soft graphite
• The Vol. 57 Slate Notebook comes with a Blackwing 57 pencil and is printed with one of Basquiat’s untitled skull paintings on the cover. This medium A5 notebook comes with 160 pages of 100 GSM Blank paper that are gold gilded on the side.
• Vol. 57 Replacement Erasers come in a 10-pack that features Red, 3 Blue, 3 Yellow, and 1 Grey erasers.

• Artworks © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York