Red Dog for Landois

The sculpture emerges from the ground like a sudden gesture: bold, playful, and unmistakably Keith Haring. With its angular silhouette and vibrant red surface, Red Dog for Landois captures the artist’s ability to transform simple lines into living presence.

Originally conceived for the 1987 Skulptur Projekte Münster, the work is dedicated to Professor Hermann Landois, the city’s eccentric priest-zoologist whose visionary spirit shaped Westphalia’s first zoological garden. In Haring’s interpretation, the dog rises from the former zoo grounds like a memory resurfacing - a humorous yet poignant nod to a figure who bridged science, faith, and whimsy.

The sculpture reflects both Haring’s unmistakable visual language and a universal meditation on vitality: the way forms can spring forward with both innocence and intent, transcending context while remaining rooted in place.

Keith Haring,

Red Dog for Landois, 1987,
painted corten steel
approx. 400 cm

Herr Lehmann’s Quiet Applause

Keith Haring’s Red Dog for Landois is, at first glance, a bold red silhouette rising from the ground. But like all things born from strong temperaments, it carries a second current - a quiet recognition between kindred spirits. Haring dedicated the work to Professor Hermann Landois, the Westphalian priest-zoologist who moved through his century with a mixture of scientific clarity, theatrical charm, and a refusal to apologize for either. Darwin read and quoted him, students adored him, and his beer-fetching monkey, Herr Lehmann, became something of a local legend.

Outsiders often recognize each other long before the world does.
Haring understood Landois intuitively: both men lived slightly off the centre line, turned instinct into method, and treated seriousness and play as two faces of the same intelligence. The Red Dog, surfacing from the earth in that unmistakably Haring gesture, feels less like a sculpture and more like a discreet nod - one unconventional mind acknowledging another across a century.

My own connection is of a quieter kind. As a great-great-nephew of Hermann Landois, I grew up with these stories not as anecdotes, but as atmosphere. It does not make the sculpture mine (it is not part of my collection) yet it occupies a place in my world that ownership could never grant. A private resonance, a familiar tone, something one recognizes without needing to explain.