Pop Artist Keith Haring Celebrated With Google Doodle

Pop Artist Keith Haring Celebrated With Google Doodle
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Haring's Google Doodle

Keith Haring, a pioneer of American pop art, has been celebrated with his own colourful Google Doodle.

The internet giants decided to pay tribute to the artist, who died in 1990 aged 31 due to an Aid-related illness, on what would have been his 54th birthday.

The design spells out ‘Google’ using Haring's trademark brightly coloured cartoon men that adorned thousands of t-shirts, badges and posters sold in his iconic Pop Shops throughout the 1980s.

Having begun his artistic career drawing in chalk around the New York subway in the late 1970s, Haring went on to be mentored by Andy Warhol and throughout the 80s became internationally recognised for his bold colours, simple lines and accessible style.

He exhibited his work in several solo shows, and provided artwork for many musical icons from the era, including Duran Duran, Grace Jones and Madonna.

After being diagnosed with Aids in 1988, Haring devoted the final two years of his life to campaigning to raise awareness of the disease and promote safe sex through the Keith Haring Foundation.

Haring’s doodle isn’t the first time Google have celebrated an artist’s life this year.

In January they changed their logo to mark what would have been the 100th birthday of American cartoonist Charles Addams, and in March the 125th anniversary of the birth of Spanish painter Juan Gris was celebrated.