Jean-Michel Basquiat Whenwas 21, he painted a canvas that would sell later that year for $4,000. It depicted a crowned skull, composed of thick, vigorous brushstrokes against an electric blue backdrop. Basquiat didn’t know it then, but it would become one of his most mythical and sought-after works.

In 2017, the same painting, Untitled (1982), sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s—over 10,000 times its original value, after adjusting for inflation. The sum shattered the artist’s previous $57.3 million record, fetched at Christie’s the year prior for another untitled 1982 work. His third-highest auction record, $48.8 million in 2013 at Christie’s, was also a 1982 painting, Dustheads. The wunderkind artist’s works from 1982 have become the most desirable to collectors and, subsequently, the most highly valued amongst his roughly decade-long output.

Why is this year so coveted? Experts say it can’t be boiled down to a single factor. A number of forces combined in 1982: His “shift from street to studio,” as Sotheby’s contemporary art specialist David Galperin put it; a new supply of large canvases, courtesy of his new dealer; a string of solo shows around the world; and a freedom from the market pressures that would come to weigh on him in the last few years of his short life.

“It’s simply his best work,” said Michael Baptist, a post-war and contemporary specialist at Christie’s, of the artist’s 1982 paintings. “But, of course, it’s more complex than that.”