(born in New York in 1955)
Junior Achievement, 1982, signed and dated, signed, dated and titled on the reverse, spray enamel on canvas, 132.1 x 243.9 cm

This work is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity signed by the artist

Provenance:
Sale, Christie‘s New York, 14 November 1995, lot 222
European Private Collection (acquired from the above by the present owner)

“I grew up on 103rd Street in Brooklyn and my introduction to graffiti was in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I’m taking the subway to school, walking, taking the bus, and on the route I’m seeing graffiti begin to appear and happen. So over the course of a few years I began to see the writing on the wall. I would think that’s why I wanted to participate in some way. (…). Around 1981 the East Village bubbled into an actual art scene. But by 1981 I’m 25 or 26 so I’ve grown up from the embryonic state as a graffiti a writer. Growing up in that era I felt attune to a lot of things, the anti-war movement, civil rights, America’s landing on the moon. The late ’60s and early ’70s were influential in my life and in the life of our country. Specifically, the East Village was a later discovery for me, and couldn’t have happened without the other individuals that I knew, who really knew about art.

When I came back to New York in 1979 after being in the navy for four years, I’d been around the world, to Mombasa Kenya, Pakistan, Australia, all over Asia, the Philippines and Japan, and most of my friends hadn’t left the block. So I got a slow education in graffiti and went away, and came back believing I was mature and grown up only to re-connect with the graffiti community which had now progressed an evolved into something. It wasn’t just scribbling on the walls anymore; it was full productions, people doing amazing works of art.

My returning to New York, post military, coincided with the meeting of Keith and Jean-Michel and by that time I knew a little more about art, I’d heard of the artists of the pop movement. When I first started making painting in 1979-81 people were comparing me to Kandinsky and making references to other artists throughout art history whom I had never heard of”.
A. Ledgerwood, Futura Reflects on the Past, Interview Magazine, 8 August 2008