Futura Paints the Bowery Wall

It was an amazing three days at the Bowery/Houston wall in Soho, NYC last weekend watching the legendary art and graffiti master FUTURA as he graced the giant, block long wall maintained by Goldman Properties. (The wall was first painted by Keith Haring in 1982.) The crowds assembled heavier as the days went on bringing out almost everyone from “back in the day” to newly established artists looking forward to seeing him work in action.

He is primarily known as a graffiti artist, beginning on trains in the early 70’s and progressed throughout the New York art scene with Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf in the 80’s. Futura is also famous for his work as a graphic designer and illustrator of record sleeves, first becoming involved with The Clash; producing a sleeve for their This Is Radio single and handwriting the sleeve notes and lyrics sheet for their album Combat Rock.

During the 1990s he was involved with clothing companies such as GFS, Subware and Project Dragon. More recently much of Futura’s artwork has evolved into the production of highly collectible toys, sneakers; and a diverse range of creative media, working with Recon, Nike, The North FaceMedicom Toy, Undercover, Supreme.

He recently completed a wall at NuArt Festival in Norway and earlier this summer at the Coney Island Art Walls in Brooklyn, NY along with many international gallery shows throughout the season. Being out there daily, I can say that he is one of the nicest, most humble artists today, graciously signing anything fans would bring from canvases and black books to clothing, sneakers, photos and anything else he was asked. A true gentleman!