The Death of Michael Stewart, known as Defacement, is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1983.

It memorializes the death of Michael Stewart at the hands of New York City Transit Police for allegedly writing graffiti in the subway.

Aspiring artist and model Michael Stewart was arrested by transit police for writing graffiti in the First Avenue station of the New York subway on September 15, 1983.

[3][4] Basquiat painted Defacement on the wall of artist Keith Haring's NoHo studio days after Stewart's death.

[5] Defacement depicts two pink-faced policemen in blue uniform, one with sharp predator teeth, with batons clobbering a black silhouette.

[7] The flyer portrays the officers with skeletal faces beating a handcuffed black man with batons.

[5] In 2016, Chaédria LaBouvier, an independent curator, partnered with her alma mater Williams College Museum of Art in Massachusetts to bring the painting to the campus.