Richard Hambelton

Richard Hambelton

Richard Hambleton is a Canadian painter, born in 1954, currently living and working in the Lower East side of New York City.
Hambleton is remembered as one of the major artists, who, along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, had great success coming out of the New York City art scene in the 1980s.
Hambleton’s work is often compared to graffiti art, though Hambleton himself considers this work to be “public art.”

Hambleton is best known for his “Mass Murder Concept” and his “Shadowman” paintings. The “Mass Murder Concept” was a series of works where Hambleton would paint the police chalk outline around bodies of volunteer “homicide victims” and splash red paint within the outline leaving behind a realistic crime scene.
His later “Shadowman” paintings of the early 1980’s resemble life-sized silhouetted images of strange people. These silhouettes were splashed and brushed with black paint on buildings or other structures across New York City in locations that would startle unsuspecting pedestrians such as in dark allies or just around a street corner. Hambleton painted these “Shadowmen” in other cities as well including Paris, and, as some believe, the Berlin Wall.