Richard Hambleton

Richard Hambleton (born June, 1954) is an artist-painter currently living and working in the Lower East Side of New York City. In addition to earlier work, Richard Hambleton is remembered as one of the major artists, who, along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, had great success coming out of the New York City art scene during the booming art market of the 1980's. Much of Hambleton's work is compared to graffiti art, however, Hambleton considers his work to be "public art".

Richard Hambleton's early public art includes his Image Mass Murder concept. From 1976 to 1979, Hambleton would paint the police "chalk" outline around bodies of volunteer "homicide victims." He would then splash some red paint on the outline, leaving behind a realistic looking crime scene. These "crime scenes" were done on the streets of several major cities across the United States and Canada. Like his future "Shadowman" paintings, the Image Mass Murder "crime scenes" would often have the effect of startling or shocking passersby.

Richard Hambleton is most famous for his "Shadowman" paintings of the early 1980s. Each painting resembles a life-sized silhouetted image of some mysterious person. These "shadow paintings" were splashed and brushed with black paint on buildings and other structures across New York City. Locations were believed to be calculated for maximum impact upon unsuspecting pedestrians.Very often, a "shadowman" could be found in a dark alley or lurking just around a street corner. Hambleton later expanded the scope of his project and painted these "shadowmen" in other cities, including Paris, London and Rome, and perhaps even on the Berlin Wall.[5]
[edit]Current work

In addition to his public art, Richard Hambleton has also created a body of work entitled, "Beautiful Paintings." In these pieces, Hambleton uses transparent paint on a metallic leaf background in order to reflect light and color to and from the viewer, who unwittingly becomes part of the visual effect. Some pieces are done on a mirror-like surface rather than with metallic leaf on canvas. With strong use of color, these pieces stand in stark contrast to his "shadow" work.
In 2007, Woodward Gallery helped revive Hambleton's career by featuring a body of The Beautiful Paintings on exhibition.

Richard Hambleton's work have been shown internationally in world-class galleries and museums, including paintings on canvas and paper of his "shadow" work.[6] Richard Hambleton's artwork has been represented in the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1988,[7] and his work is part of numerous permanent collections including that of the Museum of Modern Art.

When asked by the Wooster Collective what artists he admired, Blek le Rat (Xavier Prou) commented, "From the old school I really like Richard Hambleton. This American artist from NYC was the first street artist to export his work all over the world. It was really incredible to do that in the beginning of the 80's! This guy put his shadows in every city in Europe and so you could find them in Paris, London, Roma,Berlin etc..."

In 2009, the works of Richard Hambleton were displayed in an exhibition celebrating his 40 year career as an artist entitled, "Richard Hambleton - New York." The exhibit was the result of a collaborative effort between Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, Andy Valmorbida, and Giorgio Armani with support from Woodward Gallery.
Thirty five pieces of Hambleton's work mainly from Woodward's inventory, spanning from the early 1980's to the present were exhibited, showing his "shadow" work on canvas, (a variation of which shows his "shadowman" as a sort of "rodeo man," or rugged "Marlboro man," riding a bucking horse); presented side-by-side with his "Beautiful Paintings."

Part of the exhibit featured a series photographic images of photographer, author and music producer, Hank O'Neal, who had taken many photographs of the "Shadowman" works in 1982, and who also attended the show. O'Neal is said to have sought out examples of the "Shadowman" to photograph because he felt they were interesting examples of graffiti art, which itself was so prevalent at the time. Stunning in beauty and realism, O'Neal's "Shadowman" series now stand as both art and documentation, bringing an honest perspective to the nature of Richard Hambelton's early 1980's public art.

Presented at a huge space located at 560 Washington Street in New York City, the show was heavily publicized and featured as part of New York Fashion Week. Designed to be an "art event," similar to those in the days of Andy Warhol, the opening attracted many celebrities, including Mary J. Blige, Bruce Willis, Alicia Keys, and Jennifer Aniston; as well as a host of supermodels of the fashion world, including Lily Donaldson and Bar Refaeli. The show opened on September 15, 2009, and is seen by some as re-establishing Richard Hambleton's important place in the history of modern art.

http://www.woodwardgallery.net/hambleton.html