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Stuart Davis' works of the late 1930's celebrate the urban and technological environment and are quite complex and frequently recall Legers's brightly coloured geometric forms. Early works depict saloons and ragtime musicians. Titles and images of his works in the 30's reflect syncopation and unusual rhythm of jazz, particularly swing . .
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in 1960, four years before Stuart Davis' death. At an early age Basquiat showed an interest and love for drawing. His mother often took him to The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the age of seven he and a friend of his wrote and illustrated a children's book. Basquiat was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock films, cars, comic books, and Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. By the time he was seven he was an avid reader of French, Spanish, and English texts. In his teenage years Basquiat ran away from home often. He did not like obedience. By 1978 he was in with the "in crowd." The filmmakers and artists of New York. He enjoyed doing graffiti work using the name SAMO ( same old *censored* ). .
Basquiat's career was divided into three broad phases. From 1980 to 1982 he used painterly gestures, mostly skeletal figures that signal his obsession with mortality. He also used figures that represent street existence, such as policeman, buildings, and graffiti. From 1982 to 1985 he was using more phrases and words in his paintings. They reveal a strong interest in his black and hispanic identity and his identification with historical and contemporary black figures and events. The last phase was from 1986 until his death in 1988. His work displays a new type of figurative depiction, using different symbols, sources, and content. He was seeking a new territory in his work. .
When Basquiat's Horn Players and Davis' Swing Landscape are displayed side by side it is quite obvious that they were done by two different artist.