Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta

Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1983. Spanning over 15 feet, the artwork is an assessment of select African American history. The painting sold for $23.7 million at Sotheby's contemporary art evening auction in May 2014.
Analysis.
The title, "Undiscovered genius of the Mississippi Delta", and the banner at the top of the painting, "THE DEEP SOUTH 1912-1936-1951," hint at the meaning of the entwined text and images. The words "MISSISSIPPI" and "NEGROES" are each repeated three times in a row, "a sonic echo of insistence and emphasis." As art critic Francesco Pellizzi observed, "His use of words, however, belongs more to the "oral" traditions of Afro-American cultures—the ecstatic invocations of Voodoo worshipers; the inflamed and inflaming spiritual rhetoric of Baptist preachers with their rousing, recurring, rhythmic juxtapositions of ethical, cosmological, and practical tenets; and, of course, now, black rap…" Another repeated word is "MARK TWAIN," whose book "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is noted for its satire on racism as the protagonist travels along the Mississippi River. 
Grégoire Billault, a senior VP at Sotheby's explained the significance of the artwork in an interview with the "HuffPost": "By coupling the symbols and phrases most closely associated with the African American story with the abstract expressionist painterly technique in the multi-panel format, Jean-Michel Basquiat created an exceptional masterpiece of history painting."
Exhibitions.
"Undiscovered genius of the Mississippi Delta" has been exhibited at major art institutions worldwide, which include: