Exceptional color 22 x 31 offset lithograph poster entitled 'Rain Dance: A Benefit for the African Emergency Relief Fund' in 1985, signed in felt tip by the five collaborating artists: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Yoko Ono. In fine condition.
Published by UNICEF to advertise a fundraising exhibition and party to combat hunger in Africa, this poster is considered a classic of 1980s pop art. From Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Posters, 1964-1987, by Paul Marechal (p. 116): 'This poster reflects the créme de la créme of New York's artistic and social circles in 1985. Water, so essential to combat drought and famine prevailing in Ethiopia, was the poster's principal message and its theme, rain, is treated from different perspectives b y each of the artists: graphic (Lichtenstein's oblique lines), practical (Warhol's umbrellas), ethnographic (the rain dance by Haring), political (Basquiat, combining the homophones rain and reign, and geographic (Ono, whose footsteps illustrate Africans' long walks to reach rare water sources). Given its rarity on the market, one can estimate that some one thousand posters were printed, of which 100 were signed by all five artists, while a few others were signed by only one or a few of them.'
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