Futura 2000

FUTURA2000 (born Leonard Hilton McGurr in New York City, 1955) is a graffiti pioneer who began painting subways in the late 1970s. McGurr’s major contribution to graffiti art was his use of abstraction, adopting a style of painting characterized by its blending of text and imagery. FUTURA2000 was among the first graffiti artists to be shown in contemporary art galleries in the early 1980s. His paintings were shown at Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery and Tony Shafrazi, alongside those of his friends Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. By the 1990s, as the commercialization of global street culture inspired collaborations with fashion and lifestyle brands, FUTURA2000’s work moved toward a more refined expression of his abstract style. Commissions from brands such as Supreme, A Bathing Ape and Stüssy saw his artwork canonized as an elemental component of cross-genre street aesthetic. He has collaborated with Nike, BMW, Comme des Garçons, Louis Vuitton, and Off-White.