Richard Hambleton, often hailed as the “godfather of street art,” was a pivotal figure in New York’s downtown scene alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. He rose to prominence in the 1980s with his haunting Shadowmen and Horse and Rider figures—violent black silhouettes that looked as if they were painted in mid-detonation. After tagging walls across the U.S. and Canada, he settled in New York in 1979, covering Lower Manhattan alleyways before shifting his focus to works on canvas and paper. Hambleton exhibited at the Venice Biennale during the 1980s, but by the ’90s and early 2000s, illness and addiction pushed him to the margins of the art world. Today, his work is held in major institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, and MoMA.