Among the most popular and frequently reproduced graphic images to have emerged from the 1980s are the broad cartoonish outlines of a baby on all fours, a boxlike barking dog, and a series of identical funny little men striking a variety of energetic poses. These figures—featureless yet evocative through outline alone—had their genesis in the spontaneous ink drawings Keith Haring began making in 1980, drawings out of which, the artist told his biographer John Gruen, his "entire future vocabulary was born." Seeking the incompatible goals of immediate acceptance with the masses and critical recognition from the art establishment, Haring lived fast, painted furiously, and died tragically young.

Growing up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where as a young child he drew pictures with his father, Haring was obsessed with the art of Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, and Charles Schulz's earliest Charlie Brown comics. Television cartoons...