Untitled 1 is a 1982 lithograph on paper by Keith Haring from a series of 6 artworks. This untitled project was Haring’s very first published print series, and it comprises 40 editions.

Known for his repetitive motifs, Keith Haring looked at art as a way to communicate similarly to the way society uses language. In 1978, the artist wrote in his journal: “In painting, words are present in the form of images. Paintings can be poems if they are read as words instead of images. ‘Images that represent words.’ Egyptian Art/hieroglyphics/pictograms/Symbolism. Words as imagery.”

Inspired equally by cartoons, comics, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, Haring adopted symbolic images to enrich the stories within his art, and develop a repertoire of canonical, familiar icons. Untitled 1 shows two dogs in the style of the Egyptian god of the afterlife, Anubis, within a maze of gestural lines that animate the painting with a staccato beat. Haring’s use of the dog in his works often symbolized misadministration in the government. Here, the subjects seem to dance amidst a medley of chaos. Haring’s imagery is simplistic in form and is, of course, open to interpretation. Like a code, his symbols create threads of meaning that run through his body of work, in which the appearances and absences of certain motifs speak to his intentions: “There is possibly within my paintings more meaning representationally than I would care to admit.”