Back in June I was approached by an American exhibition design and publishing company to ask if they could use a few of my photos of graffiti from the 1970s in a book to accompany an exhibition on graffiti and street art. A week later they came back to me and said they’d changed their minds and would like to use just my photos for the book. They also asked me of they could use 12 of the photos in the exhibition. You can imagine how excited I am by all this.

Here’s a few spreads from the book which has been design by Rob Fever.

The exhibition traces six decades of the extraordinary influence of street culture on contemporary art, photography, fashion, music and activism. The story is told through innovators and legends from graffiti, street art, hip-hop, 2Tone and a wider ecosystem of people willing to challenge boundaries and take risks, reshaping the world around them.

The company is Beyond the Streets and the exhibition will be on at the Saatchi Gallery in London from 11 November 2026 – 5 May 2027. The book will be on sale at the exhibition and through Beyond the Streets’ website.

You can see the photographs from the book (plus a few more) in this album on Flickr. Please note: some of the photographs contain offensive racist and sexist writing. Please don’t look if you are likely to be upset by this.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, here’s a photo of some graffiti on the General Post Office in Dublin on the 60th anniversary in 1976: Freedom Fighters Are Not Criminals.

Click on the image to see it larger.

Last weekend I completed my walk along the Regent’s Canal starting at the Islington Tunnel and going to where it meets the Thames at the Limehouse Basin. Read more…

A second graffiti by Loretto has just appeared in Clapham – on Landor Road, just round the corner from Clapham North tube. This one depicts a man and woman sitting at a table, but the woman’s head has turned into a TV screen menu which the man is selecting from using a remote control. I love the cat sitting under the man’s chair.

Click on the image to see it larger (and to see a close-up).

A new Banksy-like graffiti has appeared just off Clapham High Street. The work is the creation of graffiti artist Loretto and depicts the evolution of man from the apes to the job centre – a great commentary on the current political situation.