Martha Cooper
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Martha Cooper is an American photojournalist born in the 1940s in Baltimore, Maryland. She worked as a staff photographer for the New York Post during the 1970s.[2] She is best known for documenting the New York City graffiti scene of the 1970s and 1980s.
Life and work
Cooper picked up photography at the age of three.[2] She graduated from high school at the age of 16,[2] earned an art degree at age 19 from Grinnell College.[4] She taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, journeyed by motorcycle from Bangkok to London and received an anthropology diploma from Oxford.[4]
Her most known personal work, the New York City graffiti scene of the 1970s and 1980s, began while working at the New York Post. On her return home from the Post she began taking photographs of children in her New York City neighborhood.[2] One day she met a young kid named Edwin who helped expose her to some of the graffiti around her neighborhood.[2] Edwin helped to explain to her that Graffiti is an art form and that each artist was actually writing his/her nickname. Edwin then proceeded to tell of the Graffiti King and asked if she would like to meet him.[2] This is when Martha met Dondi, the first one who allowed her to accompany him; while Dondi was tagging she would take photos of his art.[2] In the 1984 she put together a book of photographs illustrating the graffiti subculture called Subway Art.[2] It became known as the Bible of street art.[5]
In the 1980s Cooper worked briefly in Belize photographing the people and archaeological remains of the Mayan culture at sites such as Nohmul and Cuello.
She was a photography intern at National Geographic Magazine in the 1960s, and worked as a staff photographer at the New York Post in the 1970s. Her photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian and Natural History magazines as well as several dozen books and journals. She is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture.
Cooper lives in Manhattan but is working on a photography project in Sowebo, a Southwest Baltimore neighborhood.
Publications
- Subway Art. Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, Thames & Hudson, London, 1984, Henry Holt, New York, 1984. ISBN 0-03-071963-1
- R.I.P.: New York Spraycan Memorials. Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0-500-27776-1
- Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984. From Here to Fame, 2004. ISBN 3-937946-05-5.
- Street Play. From Here to Fame, 2005. ISBN 3-937946-16-0
- We B*Girlz. text by Nika Kramer, PowerHouse, 2005. ISBN 1-57687-269-6
- New York State of Mind. PowerHouse, 2007. ISBN 1-57687-408-7
- Going Postal. Mark Batty Publisher, 2009. ISBN 0-9799666-5-5
See also
References
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- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ New Houston Street Mural Marks Street Art Photographer Martha Cooper’s 70th Birthday, Benjamin Sutton, Art Info, March 11, 2013
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Cooper's personal blog
- Cooper's website about B-Girlz
- Cooper's website about female photographers
- Cooper's website of recent NY city photos
- at149st profile
- Video Interview with Cooper
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