More than 25 years after Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a drug overdose, at 27, his most devoted collectors, Lenore and Herbert Schorr, are sharing their treasures in a show at New York’s Acquavella Galleries. Their memories of the artist, a surrogate son, illuminate his struggle to be seen.

‘We were living in Westchester County in the early 80s, and we would come into New York on Saturday mornings, stop at Jean’s, and he’d ask us to drive him to pick up some musical equipment that he needed,” remembers Lenore Schorr, who, along with her husband, Herbert, qualify as the most devoted early collectors of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died at 27, in 1988. “Having us drive him was clearly easier for him than his trying to get a taxi, because of the fact that he was black,” explains Lenore. “He used to joke that he needed to get Herb a driver’s cap, and that he’d buy us a hot dog afterwards.”

After he’d lost faith in the art-world establishment, Basquiat even asked Herb, a scientist and self-described “nerd,” to take over as his dealer. No fool, Herb, he did not give up his day job. What he did do, though, with Lenore, was build an unparalleled collection of Basquiat’s work, some of it bought directly from the artist’s studio, all of it clearly chosen with eyes that knew what they were looking at.

Talking to the couple 30 years later, one cannot help being moved by the mutual respect and affection that bonded this unlikely trio; they were surrogate parents to a surrogate son, whose relationship with his own parents was complicated and fraught. Basquiat grew up in Brooklyn. His mother, Matilde, was of Puerto Rican descent, and his father, Gerard, an accountant, had originally come from Haiti; they separated when Jean-Michel was seven. The artist spoke only loving words about his mother, who was the first person to take him to museums, but whose emotional fragility landed her in psychiatric institutions. (Having permanently left his father’s home at 17, he did not hide their strained relationship.)

Basquiat’s most influential mentor was Andy Warhol, whom the young artist sought out, befriended, and collaborated with, much to both men’s pride. But the Schorrs provided a safe harbor. Their love affair with the artist started in 1981, after he had decided to reject his famous (among graffiti writers) tag as Samo© (which stood for “same old shit”) and become Jean-Michel Basquiat, an artist in the so-called legit art world. Thanks to a dynamic group of shows put on by various collectives, word got out about his prodigious gifts, and the first bite from a gallery came from Annina Nosei, a dealer with sharp antennae for talent. She offered him an exchange: he could use the basement of her ground-floor gallery as a studio, and she would sell the work. (Looking back, the zoo-like aspects of the deal are even more blatant. What about “a room of his own,” with some light?) One day the Schorrs showed up. Nosei schlepped some Basquiat canvases up from the basement. The couple was curious but not convinced. Nosei said she wanted them to see one other work that she’d been saving for herself. Code for: Here comes the sales pitch, the Schorrs recall, laughing. But the painting, Poison Oasis, 1981, won them over, and so did the hauntingly beautiful young man who suddenly appeared. He remained in their lives until heroin stopped his heart, in 1988.

The big news is that, come May 1, the couple will be sharing some of their treasures, in “Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work from the Schorr Family Collection,” at the Acquavella Galleries, in New York, through June 13. Run there, if you can. In Basquiat’s hands, drawing is not lower in the hierarchy than painting, but an equally powerful medium, opening up infinite possibilities of self-expression. Whether simple or complex, modestly scaled or ambitiously epic, Basquiat’s drawings are the visual expression of pure energy. You can feel his brain and his hand working in concert when you look at the best of them. Indeed, the paintings themselves are powered by Basquiat’s electrifying line.

Untitled, 1982.

The Acquavella show, driven by Eleanor Acquavella, is being curated by Fred Hoffman, who co-organized the 2005 Basquiat exhibition, which opened at the Brooklyn Museum. It features 22 of the artist’s finest drawings, created in the period 1981–86, plus a couple of related paintings. None of the work is for sale. The Schorrs have countless stories about major museums and institutions, including the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art, turning down gifts of Basquiat’s work before he died. A wariness toward the artist, shaped by racial politics, played a major part in how he was treated and how his works were received during his lifetime.

Untitled, 1985.