New York Daily Photo Analytics

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Street Painting

Hani Shihada has been doing sidewalk street painting in NYC since 1985, having first started in Perugia, Italy, where sidewalk art is a tradition going back to 16th century Italy. In 1972, the Italian village of Grazie di Curtatone hosted the first known festival of street painting. Street painters were known as madonnari because of their work drawing the Madonnas of Raphael. Hani, a Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Jordan, specializes in reproductions of Michelangelo and Raphael, working in pastel chalk. It is estimated there are a few hundred sidewalk chalk artists today, traveling and making a living from their work. Although I'm sure that some may see this as crass commercialism or debasement, it does appear that the artists take their work seriously - most work in various media and have had formal art training (some in Europe) such as Kurt Wenner and Mark Cummings (currently residing and studying in Florence). Click here for Mark's site which has an excellent history of the artform. Like many of his contemporaries, Hani has done many large-scale commissioned works - sidewalk art, murals, public and private. Everywhere I look, what appears to be a small, unique or incidental thing turns out to be a world ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Superbe. ces fresques sur trottoir mais font penser aux oeuvres de Julian Beever

Anonymous said...

marvellous document! i would love Hani to go to Budapest!
how long does he need to complete it ?

Anonymous said...

great great great!
Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Caro Felice,
eccomi a casa mia in Germania.
Sai, la tua pagina non va oltre l'introduzione. Forse chiedi aiuto al tuo webdesigner.
Sono molto contenta di averti potuto salutare. Che bello sapere che anche TU esisti con il tuo preziosissimo lavoro.
Un abbraccione
Paola