Name: Bayer Suite 6
Brand: Keith Haring
Rating: 5 (231 reviews)

Meaning & Analysis

Rendered in the artist’s classic figurative style, Bayer Suite 6 is a signed offset lithograph with a limited edition of 70 from Keith Haring’s Bayer Suite series. The series was originally commissioned by Bayer AG in 1982 on the occasion of the release of the heart medication ‘Sali-Adalat’. The result is a set of six celebratory prints that focus on the theme of movement and the heart, limited to a colour palette of red, black and white.

Bayer Suite 6 shows an image of a running figure with three legs and its arms in the air, depicted in Haring’s graphic linear style. Instantly recognisable as Haring, the print is made up of bold, thick lines and simplistic shapes in a way that communicates a sense of joy and energy to the viewer. Haring injects a sense of comedy to the print by showing the figure with three legs, resembling classic cartoon animations of characters running at a fast pace.

Taking influence from the Pop Art movement and artists like Andy Warhol, Haring utilised thick black lines and a flattened picture plane to make his art accessible and engage with diverse audiences. The simplistic form and positive visual language of Bayer Suite 6 recalls the artist’s early subway drawings, where he spent his days drawing in white chalk on the empty advertising panels of the New York subway system.