13 Facts About Richard Hambleton

Richard Art Hambleton was a Canadian artist known for his work as a street artist.

Richard Hambleton was a surviving member of a group that emerged from the New York City art scene during the booming art market of the 1980s which included Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Richard Hambleton was born on June 23,1952 in Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Richard Hambleton received an Advanced Diploma from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver in 1975.

Richard Hambleton founded and became a co-director of Pumps Centre for Alternative Art, a gallery, performance and video space in Vancouver where he had his first solo exhibition in 1976.

Richard Hambleton later expanded the scope of his project and painted these "shadowmen" in other cities, including Paris, London and Rome, and in 1984 he painted 17 life-size figures on the East side of the Berlin Wall, returning a year later to paint more figures on the West side of the wall.

In 1983, during Malcolm McLaren's fashion design partnership with Vivienne Westwood, they collaborated with Richard Hambleton to create a "Shadowman" jersey skirt.

Richard Hambleton "became increasingly weary of the art business" and its impact on his artistic freedoms.

Richard Hambleton stated that this work was a reaction against the abundance of figurative painting displayed in galleries at the time, to which he chose not include figurative work of his own.

Richard Hambleton said that he intentionally sought out a different mood, "with a different sensibility," from his previous work.

Richard Hambleton was included in the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1988.

At the 2010 annual AIDS charity amfAR dinner party, held during the Cannes Film Festival, two of Richard Hambleton's painting were auctioned for a combined $920,000.00, to help raise funds for AIDS research.

Richard Hambleton died on October 29,2017, of cancer at the age of 65.