‘I have very few regrets in life. Mistakes are part of the learning curve and essential in order to accumulate the experience to forge ahead and succeed. But in 1981, Francesca Thyssen, who was making waves in London’s hedonistic sub-culture, arrived at my office in what appeared to be a very friendly mode. With her was Jean-Michel Basquiat – the Brooklyn-born son of a Haitian father, whose graffiti-based art came to epitomise the youth culture of the 80s with all its excess and disaffection. If I could have guessed then what an impact he would have on the art scene before departing at the age of twenty-seven, I would have invested in his paintings. Each one that survives today is worth a fortune! In 1998 Quartet Books published Phoebe Hoban’s biography of the artist, which the New York Times called ‘compulsively readable’. The book, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, has just been re-printed – with a brand new binding – to satisfy public demand. Get your copy now, before stocks run out’

Our Chairman Naim Attallah on the reprint of Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hoban and meeting Basquiat in 1981.