Primarily a still-life photographer,
Jeannette Montgomery utilizes similar precepts of composition and design to
formulate her portraits. Elements of light and dark, substance and
shadow are balanced carefully within the boundaries of her images. Only rarely
does she use flash equipment, preferring instead to photograph with ambient
light or, as in this portrait, ordinary lamplight that has been indirectly
positioned.

Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young
painter whose rapid ascent from the streets of New York City as the graffiti
artist, Samo, into the international art scene astounded even the most
unflappable observers. Commissioned to take his portrait in the midst of this
rise to stardom, Montgomery was challenged by his watchfulness and reticence.
She was allowed only thirty minutes in which to
complete the sitting. Nevertheless, she has realized a portrait that eloquently
describes a man who lived in the shadows for most of his life and preferred to
remain so, guarded and distant. Basquiat died in 1988 of a drug overdose.