RICHARD HAMBLETON | UNTITLED

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 1992

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”.

Richard Hambleton’s work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1984 and 1985, and as part of the Venice Biennales of 1984 and 1988, respectively, where he painted his signature shadowmen across Venice. A subsequent tour of Europe brought his figures to the streets of Paris, Rome and London. He also travelled to Berlin to paint seventeen life-size shadowmen on the eastern side of Berlin Wall, returning a year later to paint more on the western side. The Shadowman stands as a symbol of a moment in time, an instantly recognizable figure that will forever permeate our psyche.