Bad Boys is among Haring’s most explicit treatments of male sexual intimacy. Across the six screenprints, simplified male bodies are shown in sexual acts that are recognisable but deliberately difficult to read at first glance. Haring surrounds and overlays the figures with his characteristic thick, looping lines, so that bodies, limbs, genitals and surrounding marks become part of the same visual field.

The portfolio is very personal in tone. Its male couples and sexual encounters place gay sexuality at the centre of the imagery rather than treating it as an incidental element. Made during the years when Haring’s work increasingly addressed AIDS, sex and public health, the prints retain the physical directness of his earlier erotic drawings while losing none of their humour. The title itself is playful, but the images are frank about sexual contact and desire.

Bad Boys was published by Bébert in Rotterdam in 1986, in a limited edition of 30 copies, together with seven sets of artist’s proofs.