Subway Art

In 1984, photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant captured the imagination of a generation with Subway Art, a groundbreaking book documenting the work of graffiti writers who illegally painted subway cars in New York City. The 2009 edition of the book is now available in a new, slightly reduced format. Henry Chalfant's images of the trains retain their impact, while Martha Cooper's narrative pictures tell the story. In the introductions, the authors recall how they gained entry to the New York graffiti community in the 1970s and 1980s and describe the techniques that they used to photograph it. Afterwords report how the lives of the original subway artists have unfolded, and chronicle the end of the subway graffiti scene in the late 1980s and its unexpected rebirth as a global art movement. This is an essential book for all fans of graffiti, stunning photography and 1980s-cool.

'The ultimate book for fans of graffiti … captures 1980s-cool' - City Magazine

Martha Cooper has contributed the photographs for over twenty books and is Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. Henry Chalfant is an American photographer and videographer well known for his work on hip hop culture. He is the author of Spraycan Art, and his world-renowned documentation of the artists of the New York subway was memorialized in the most successful book on graffiti ever published, Subway Art, published by Thames & Hudson.