Basquiat works on display at New York Sotheby’s before private sale

Fans can have one last look at works by Jean-Michel Basquiat before they go on sale.

More than 30 pieces -- from simple crayon on paper to sophisticated, colorful canvases -- will be on display May 2 through June 9 at Sotheby’s galleries in New York. Most are then bound for a private sale.

Pieces by the Brooklyn-born painter, who died of a drug overdose in 1988, have continued to fetch high prices at auction.

ART: Can you guess the high price?

Christie’s in November sold Basquiat’s 1981 untitled portrait of a fisherman for a record $26.4 million, and next month the auction house is asking between $25 million and $35 million for “Dustheads,” a 7-foot acrylic painting of two figures.

For those who want a more affordable piece of Basquiat, his former girlfriend Alexis Adler is penning a book featuring relics from the couple’s former East Village apartment, which also served as Basquiat’s canvas.

Basquiat gained notoriety in the New York underground art scene in the 1980s for his marker scrawlings across the walls of Manhattan. He later graduated to monumental canvases that fused drawing, painting and poetry.

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