Polaroid SX-70 Black Book

In the early 1980s, before SUBWAY ART or Style Wars shifted the status of the local New York phenomenon to a global graffiti movement, a small Downtown gallery scene emerged. Writers which already made a name on the trains and also did canvases got in touch with gallery owners, collectors and often like-minded artists who worked on the streets like Keith Haring, Richard Hambleton or Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ward “Skipper” Merrill Hooper Jr., born 1958 in New York, was an interested photographer who joined many of these events and captured them with his Polaroid camera.

Polaroid SX-70 Black Book shows for the first time ever a selection of his shots documenting protagonists and contemporaries of this unique time in places like the Graffiti Above Ground Gallery, Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery or Annina Nosei Gallery but also on the streets or in subway stations. A foreword by Chris DAZE Ellis and an interview by publisher Pascal Feucher allow more insights in the work Skipper did over 40 years ago in New York before he moved to Berlin in 1983.

On 160 pages the lovely designed book presents each Polaroid using a glossy finish for the front side but also showing the back side that often has been signed by the photographed writers like FUTURA2000, LADY PINK, SEEN TC5, SEEN UA, FAB 5 FREDDY or CEY. An accompanying index gives additional information and helps identify the place, time and persons.

This little gem spotlights a time and scene which has not been documented to this extent in the past. You can find artworks and photos of BS119, CAINE1, Charlie Ahearn, CRASH, DONDI, DURO, ERNI, HAZE, IZ THE WIZ, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Juan Dubose, Keith Haring, Martha Cooper, NELSON, REVOLT, Richard Hambleton, SHY147, SMILEY, TRACY168, WASP1 or ZEPHYR in the content.

160 pages, 20 cm x 22,3 cm, hardcover with a tipped-in printed photograph
Language: English
Release date: March 2026
ISBN: 978-3-9819026-7-9
Publisher: Urban Spree Books