RICHARD HAMBLETON | JUMPING SHADOW, BOXING SHADOWMAN

Richard Hambleton and Gerard A. Schreiner, Richard Hambleton 1981-84 (Obsession), New York 1987 (illustrated)

An American-Canadian graffiti artist, Richard Hambleton initially attracted public attention by painting faux crime-scene outlines of bodies on pavements. In the early 1980s, Hambleton painted buildings in the Lower East Side of New York City alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, during which time the artist also began to portray iterations of his highly recognized Shadowman figures onto found objects and canvases. According to the artist, “they could represent watchmen or danger or the shadows of a human body after a nuclear holocaust or even my own shadow”.