Martha Cooper: The Photographer Behind New York's Graffiti Golden Age

Martha Cooper, now 83, is the photographer who documented New York's graffiti scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, producing the seminal book "Subway Art" (1984) with Henry Chalfant. Born in Baltimore in the 1940s, she studied art at Grinnell College, taught English in Thailand with the Peace Corps, and earned a diploma in ethnology at Oxford before joining the New York Post in 1977. While covering crime and celebrities, she began photographing children playing unsupervised in decaying neighborhoods like the Lower East Side. In 1979, she met Edwin Serrano (HE3), who introduced her to graffiti writer Dondi (Donald Joseph White). Cooper spent nights in train yards documenting the illegal art form. "Subway Art" was initially a commercial failure but became the "bible" of graffiti, selling over half a million copies and often stolen from bookstores. Cooper also documented b-boying and hip hop culture in the Bronx, later publishing "Hip Hop Files" (2004), "We B* Girlz" (2005), "Street Play" (2006), "Tokyo Tattoo 1970" (2012), and "Spray Nation" with Roger Gastman. She has always focused on "art in people's lives, outside galleries and museums." In 2019, Selina Miles directed the documentary "Martha: A Picture Story," premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Cooper continues to photograph street culture, believing her work preserves a history she thought would disappear.