Keith Haring Mural Ripped From UWS Building Sets Auction Record

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A mural painted on the walls of an Upper West Side stairwell by Keith Haring has sold for a record price at auction after being ripped out of the building, auction house Bonhams announced Wednesday.

The auction house fetched $3.8 million for the "Grace House" mural, the most ever paid for a Haring mural. Haring painted the 85-foot mural inside West 108th Street's Grace House, a former convent owned by the Church of the Ascension, between 1983 and 1984 for kids attending a youth center at the building.

Haring's Grace House mural features some of his most recognizable figures such as the "radiant baby," "barking dog" and "dancing people." The painting was completed in one night with no advanced planning. Walls containing the mural were removed from Grace House over a two-year period and consigned to Bonham's as the Church of the Ascension prepares to sell the building to fund improvements for the parish.

"Keith Haring's mural was one of the stand-out lots of this auction week – and we were delighted with the result. The work generated an enormous amount of interest during its exhibition and we welcomed visitors to Bonhams from all around the globe," Bruno Vinciguerra,a Bonhams executive, said in a statement.

The sale of the artwork has been met with mixed reactions, as some believe the mural should have been preserved inside the West 108th Street building.

Gil Vazquez, acting director of the Haring Foundation, told Patch in an interview earlier this month that the organization was "dissapointed" that the mural was not kept intact, but admitted that removing the artwork from the building is preferable to other alternatives such as demolition or being painted over. The church never consulted the foundation on how to preserve the mural, Vazquez said.

"We were in talks with someone in the archdiocese who we later learned had no authority over the decision," Vazquez told Patch. "We knew of an organization who was interested in purchasing the building as is with the mural intact. The Ali Forney Center, an organization that helps to house homeless LGBTQ+ kids, would have been a great fit for that building."

Rev. Daniel S. Kearney of the Church of the Ascension said that plans to sell Grace House meant that removing the mural from the building was the only way to ensure its preservation. Gary Mallon, the man who ran the youth organization Haring painted the mural for, said the sale "kills" him because Haring didn't do the work for the church, but instead for the kids in his program.

Read Patch's full feature on the mural, including interviews with those who were there the night it was pained, here.