Richard Hambleton

Richard Hambleton was a Canadian artist known for his work as a street artist. He was a surviving member of a group that emerged from the New York City art scene during the booming art market of the 1980s. In 1979 Hambleton moved permanently to the Lower East Side of New York. It was in New York that Hambleton gained notoriety for his “Shadowman” paintings of the early 1980s. Each painting resembles a life-sized silhouetted image of some mysterious person, a splashy shadow figure. These shadow paintings were splashed and brushed with black paint on hundreds of buildings and other structures across New York City. Locations were believed to be calculated for maximum impact upon unsuspecting pedestrians. Very often, a “Shadowman” could be found in a dark alley or lurking just around a street corner.