HAPPY BIRTHDAY: MARTHA COOPER

Got a Girl Crush On: Martha Cooper

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 and she is most importantly known for documenting the New York graffiti hip-hop scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Her most known work began while working at the New York Post. On a  return home from work she began taking photos of children in her New York city neighborhood. As the story goes, One day she met a young kid who helped expose her to some of the graffiti around the neighborhood. He then helped to explain to Martha that Graffiti is an art form and that each artist was actually writing his/her nickname and then proceeded to tell her about a local “Graffiti King” and asked if she would like to meet him. pretty much after meeting DONDI the “graffiti king” everything else fell into motion, fast forward years later and Martha Cooper has become one the Graffiti cultures most important and respected Icons and Photographers

PHOTO CREDIT: MARTHA COOPER, HYPEBEAST

(via vato13)