Happy Birthday Martha Cooper!

  • March 11, 2023
  • by Anne Schmedding

With her documentation of the New York graffiti and hip-hop scene of the 1970s and 1980s, she helped the art form achieve worldwide fame. Her book “Subway Art”, written in collaboration with Henry Chalfant, was one of the first books on the newly formed New York graffiti style.

Even at the age of 80, Martha is still in the middle of the scene and accompanies graffiti artists in their work to depict graffiti in its original environment and in the midst of its creation. In the process, unique images emerge.

With a generous donation of books and materials in 2014, she provided the foundation for the Martha Cooper Library named after her, whose reading room, which will open in November 2021, can be found in the URBAN NATION Museum and can be visited by appointment.

In our webshop you can still find the catalog “Taking Pictures” of Martha’s great exhibition, which was shown at the URBAN NATION Museum from 2020 to 2022.

We wish Martha Cooper many more years of photographing at festivals, in subway stations, on sidings and with all the people she means so much to!

Martha Cooper’s first visit to her exhibition at Urban Nation Museum and Martha Cooper Library in Berlin, Germany, in October 2021. Photos by Nika Kramer