Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. He came into prominence in the 1980s for being one of the leading lights of the neo expressionist era. His father was employed as an accountant. Although he learnt to read and write by himself as a child, he did not do as well as he would have liked at school. He dropped out of school and studied at a school of alternative education where he learnt art. When his father forced him to move out of his house after quitting school, he started selling T-shirts in order to take care of his expenses. After a few years, he partnered with a friend to create ‘SAMO,’ a group that painted graffiti on buildings in New York. His work as a graffiti artist got him noticed. His work also landed him a job in a T-shirt company. He even had his own musical band that performed at particular nightclubs. Though he was multi-talented, it was his work as a painter that made him famous in the 1980s. Eventually, his work found a lot of buyers due to the high demand of new expressionist art.