This Lee graffiti train was the first of hundreds to be shot by photographer Henry Chalfant. He used it to develop his technique of photo frame-cropping graffitied train cars like canvases. Chalfant composed each photo from several individual shots taken parallel to the train car.
Photo: Henry Chalfant.
The real first name (Lin Felton) of the writer, who started as a tagger around 1970 in Queens, New York, also appears in this Quik waggon. From 1980 he also designed canvases and exhibited in galleries.
Photo: Henry Chalfant.
This was Martha Cooper's first train graffiti photo. Like Henry Chalfant's she took a picture of a Lee train. Photojournalist and ethnographer Cooper photographed graffiti with a lot of context. The first documented Lee train cars date from 1975.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
This pioneer of abstract graffiti played an important role as a promoter of style writing in Europe. He sprayed and rapped live there during concerts by the punk band The Clash.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
"My style [...] was bold block letters and lots of bright colors [...]. This piece was like a rainbow with six Krylon colors that came from one pass to the other." In 2023, Banksy cited this work as inspiration for his early work.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
In Campbell's Soup, Brathwaite integrated graffiti into art history - Warhol's Pop Art and the Dada art movement. Fabulous Soup is a tribute to Fred's graffiti crew The Fab 5 and TV Soup to the New York underground TV show TV Party (1978-82).
Photo: Martha Cooper.
The influential main work of the “Style Master General”, who died early from AIDS, quotes a song by the English heavy metal and hard rock band Black-Sabbath in the title and the underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode (1941-75) in the characters.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
Blade's walking stilt letters are among the most reproduced graffiti features.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
For four years, this illegal two-car tribute to the murdered John Lennon traveled in tandem through New York as the cleaning staff refused to sand blast it.
Photo: Martha Cooper.
From 1977, Daze and Crash illegally painted trains together and continued to share a studio in 2020. They painted on canvases early on and collaborated with artists such as John Fekner and Walter Dahn.
Photo: Martha Cooper, 1981.
The graffiti pioneer Phase 2 is considered the inventor and further developer of graffiti writing styles such as the bubble style with rounded, soft bubble-like letters. With the younger writer Skeme he created an early example of guerrilla marketing - Tuff City is a record label.
Photo: Martha Cooper.