The posters framed it as a fight; a challenge between two heavyweights. At left was Andy Warhol, wearing shiny Everlast boxing gloves, shorts, a black turtleneck, and a vaguely haunted look on his face—he was, by then, a frail 56—his arms crossed like Tutankhamen’s. At his side was Jean-Michel Basquiat, shirtless, impassive, and not yet 25, in the same gloves, shorts, and stance. In other imagery, their gloves are raised, or Warhol (softly) lands a blow on Basquiat’s jaw. It was 1985, and paintings from a collaboration between the two artists—orchestrated by Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischof-berger, who formally introduced them in 1982—were headed to Tony Shafrazi’s gallery on Mercer Street.
The critical response to their project was not warm. When, the year before, paintings that Warhol, Basquiat, and Italian…