Henry Chalfant is a Stanford University-educated sculptor who photographed New York City subway graffiti in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, New York City’s subway graffiti was at one of its highest levels of creativity. He documented important works by artists such as LEE, DONDI, FUTURA, SKEME, SEEN and many others. As a result, Chalfant became well known and respected within New York’s graffiti art community. To Chalfant’s credit are three of the most historically influential documentations of aerosol art. In 1983, he released the film “Style Wars” which he co-produced with director Tony Silver. In the 1970s, the urban landscape in New York was transformed by graffiti artists who invented a new visual language to express their individuality. “Style Wars” documents these artists claiming New York’s ramshackle subway system as their public playground, battlefield, and canvas while meeting opposition from then-mayor Ed Koch, the police, and the New York Transit Authority. In 1984, he published the book “Subway Art”, which he co-authored with photographer Martha Cooper. The book and film captured aerosol art culture during one of its peak periods in New York City and have become definitive documents of the time. In 1987, Chalfant co-authored the book “Spraycan Art” with James Prigoff. “Spraycan Art” documented the global expansion of aerosol art. Each one of these documentary efforts has been embraced by the international graffiti community and they have served as cultural blueprints for graffiti art movements across the world. Considered the definitive chronicler of this fleeting moment in American cultural history, Chalfant’s photographs have been displayed internationally and he has lectured extensively on the topic of graffiti at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
