There was a time I thought Andy Warhol could have been a little more careful with his paint application.  And I thought Jean-Michel Basquiat was a talentless scribbler.

Which is only to say that I remember them alive and working, and that I spent much of my earlier life being stupid.

When Andy Warhol, who had a life-long fear of hospitals, died in one unnecessarily while his private nurse slept on duty, my heart broke a little for the sad irony.  And when Basquiat died the following year, of heroin and his own Warhol-broken heart, his art finally came alive for me.

Today I count myself lucky that from the societal margin of my high school and college days I lived a little bit of the Warhol era.  Today if someone compares my work to Warhol’s (unless what they’re saying is something like, OMG Andy Warhol would have hated your work), my heart sings.  No one compares my work to Basquiat’s, but I wish my work were good enough to encourage that.

Warhol, who was born the same day as my father, died in 1987 at the age of 58. Warhol’s reputation was long established – he was a game changer, an art-world phenomenon, and a genius at self-promotion.  But all of that only mattered because the art was genius, too.

Basquiat died at 27 in 1988.  He had been a street kid with a natural talent whose comment on his own art was, “It’s about 80% anger.”  The raw emotion of his work has not only stood the test of decades (this year will mark the 25th anniversary of his death), it still has an immediacy that is fresh today.

I am just back from Gagosian’s Chelsea Gallery, where more than 50 Basquiat works have been put on display.  (http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/jean-michel-basquiat–february-07-2013)  Although the opening was last week, the gallery was packed.  And room after room after room are full of Basquiat’s anger, his scribbling mark-making, his comments on racial inequality, and his amazing, stunning use of color.  What courage it must have taken him to pour out his soul in the face of criticism and the fickleness of “experts”.  It is not just the paintings that make me want to cry, it is the story of the lost boy who gave us so much and then gave up on life.

For me, Basquiat and Warhol are forever friends and collaborators – the influence of each obvious on the other.  The influence of each obvious on me and on artists everywhere.