The ‘godfather’ of street art

Royal engagements, recession, protests and strikes: 2010, it seems, is more than a little ‘eighties’.

Thankfully, one of the best things to come out of the exorbitantly coiffured, leg-warmer clad decade is also making a resurgence.  Opening today is a show devoted to New York based artist Richard Hambleton – aka ‘The Godfather of Street Art’, marking his first ever UK show The Dairy in London.

by Richard Hambleton
by Richard Hambleton

Hambleton made his name on the street scene in the early 1980s alongside other renowned artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. 

Hambleton’s first caved his niche in the street art wall of fame with his iconic fake murder scenes – where the artists painted chalk body outlines on the street, daubing them with red paint for the full ‘crime scene’ effect.

Over three decades later, this exhibition will feature around 40 works, half of which have never previously been exhibited.

by Richard Hambleton
by Richard Hambleton

Alongside many new works, the show will also feature works from the famous Shadowman series from the early 1980s.  These are a series of paintings that resemble a life-size silhouette, and the shadow paintings were, at the time, brushed with black paint across hundreds of buildings in New York, Paris, London, Rome and on the Berlin Wall, placed deliberately to startle passers by.

The show is in collaboration with Giorgio Armani, as Giorgio himself is said to be a huge fan of Hambleton’s work.

by Richard Hambleton
by Richard Hambleton

Richard Hambleton: The Godfather of Street Art is open 17 November – 3 December at The Dairy, 7 Wakefield Street,  London WC1N

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