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Jack Stewart: ‘The Birth of Subway Graffiti’

Jack Stewart Worm
Courtesy Rose Library
WORM: Photo by Riff. (C) Estate of Jack Stewart
Thursday October 3, 2019 06:00 PM EDT
Cost: Free

From the venue:

Did you know an artist from Atlanta was one of the first to photograph subway graffiti in New York City? Jack Stewart—the artist—started documenting graffiti in 1970, a year after it emerged, and, over the next few years, he captured the appearance of bubble letters, 3D letters, Wild Style, and whole-train pieces.

This exhibition features Stewart’s photographs of subway graffiti in the New York City. The images are drawn from the Jack Stewart papers at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

At the time he took these images, graffiti was considered vandalism, a crime, but Stewart realized quickly this new art form reached back all the way to the origins of drawing and it represented the first style of Western art created by children and teenagers. Fired by these insights, Stewart photographed subway trains every weekend for three years. He continued to shoot pictures of trains, although with less frequency, until 1979.

Jack Stewart: The Birth of Subway Graffiti highlights images that did not appear in Stewart’s 2009 book Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970s.

Friday and Saturday: 1-6 p.m. or by appointment.

Opening reception: Oct. 3, 6-10 p.m.
Live graffiti painting: Oct. 5, 2:30-5:30 p.m.
Closing reception: Oct. 19, 6-10 p.m.

More information

At

378 Gallery
378 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 530-9277
gallery378.com
neighborhood: