PODCAST: Leaving a Mark, Jack Stewart’s Photographs of Subway Graffiti Art

Photographs by Atlanta artist document early graffiti painting on New York subway cars

Photo credit: Jack Stewart

Flyer announcing the closing of "Jack Stewart: The Birth of Graffiti Art," an exhibition of never-before-shown photographs by the Atlanta artist who documented the early years of graffiti writing and painting on New York City subway cars.

By Doug DeLoach Thursday October 17, 2019 03:56 PM EDT

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Jack Stewart: The Birth of Graffiti Art, is an exhibition of never-before-shown photographs by an Atlanta artist who fought under General George Patton in World War Two and documented the early years of graffiti writing and painting on subway cars in New York City.

The exhibition at 378 in Candler Park, on Clifton Road behind Flying Biscuit, runs through Saturday, October 19. A closing party Saturday evening, which is free and open to the public, will feature music by W8ing4UFOs.

Participating in the podcast discussion are Randy Gue, Curator of Political & Historical Collections at Emory’s Rose Library, and two local graffiti writers and historians, Antar Fierce and Mendez MadClout.

The discussion covers the historical importance of Stewart’s photographs, his PhD dissertation on graffiti art is “the Bible” on the subject, and the origins and stylistic development of graffiti, which in the late 1970s and early ’80s made the leap from subway cars to major galleries in Europe and America, as well as to the streets of Atlanta, Fay Gold Gallery and 688.