Dustheads

Dustheads is a 1982 painting by the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It shows two drug addicts on angel dust as frenetic, radiant figures set against a black backdrop. The work was long in the collection of Tiqui Atencio, who bought it from the art dealer Tony Shafrazi in 1996. In May 2013 the businessman Jho Low bought it for 48.8 million dollars at Christie's, which was then the highest price paid at auction for a Basquiat painting. That record was later passed by an untitled 1982 devil painting in 2016 and by an untitled 1982 skull painting in 2017. In 2016 Low sold Dustheads for 35 million dollars, at a loss, while federal authorities were investigating assets allegedly bought with money taken from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund. Its sale history makes it a marker in the auction record for the artist's paintings.