''Tower'' ( French: ''Tour'') is a mural by American artist

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

executed in 1987. The mural covers the exterior of a preserved stairwell from the now demolished building of the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is one of two public murals in France by the artist.

Description

The 88.5 foot-tall mural is composed of black line figures overlaid on bright-colored shapes. William Shank, former chief conservator of the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, described the mural:

His freehand design depicts a large pregnant woman, his signature crawling ‘radiant babies,’ and a handful of bouncing figures of adults interacting with children. All of the figures were applied in thick black lines, at close-range and without preliminary sketches, over free-form shapes of bright yellows, greens, blues and reds.

Historical Information

Conception

Haring painted the mural while in Paris for the 10th anniversary exhibition of American artists at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

. It covers the surface of what was once an exterior stairwell of the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital. Haring had described the Necker hospital as the "ugly building" and wrote in his journal in 1987 that: “I made this painting to amuse the sick children in this hospital, now and in the future”. It was painted with the assistance of Haring's then boyfriend and member of the House of Xtravaganza Juan Rivera. They completed the mural over the course of three days without the use of preparatory sketches, using a crane to suspend themselves from the top of the structure.

Restoration

Planning for a restoration of the mural began in 2011 as the stairwell and paint surface had become so derelict as to be condemned by the hospital's officials. Conservator William Shank described how: "iron armature was poking through the painted surface alarmingly in many key places, disrupting the visual harmony of the mural," and that "the black lines themselves had suffered from extreme seasonal changes in temperature, lifting and peeling away from the tower over about eighty percent of the surface". Gallerist Jérôme de Noirmont led restoration efforts in collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation. Funding was primarily provided by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation and through a charity auction organized by

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

. Restoration was undertaken by conservators Antonio Rava and William Shank, who had also restored Haring's 1989 mural '' Tuttomondo'' in

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. By the time the ''Tower'' was fully restored in September 2017, the 1950s surgery center the stairwell had once attached to had been demolished and a new hospital building had been constructed. The mural now stands as a "totem" and centerpiece of the hospital gardens.

References

External links

*http://www.haring.com/ {{Keith Haring Murals 1987 paintings Paintings by Keith Haring Paintings in Paris 1980s murals