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Awesome and Inspirational, I’ve been waiting for a graff article for a while!

Thanks SMasH

I love the fact that the title is 50 Beautiful Graffiti Artworks and not ‘50 most beautiful’ which you guys featured earlier on some other articles that i found were very subjectives. What a way to start my monday. SMASHING!

nice post, but where are the REAL legends??? can2, daim…etc.

they are the real oldschool m’fakaz in this business.

50 entries and nothing about mode2 or daim you must be kidding me!?!

Awesome set! A lot of inspiration for web designs here too! Did I see a photoshopped one in there?

If you all like this post- make sure to check out http://WoosterCollective.com – It’s a celebration of street art and documents street art world wide.

the “unknown” artist is flickr. com/ photos/ gaiastreetart/

Great list by my all time favourite was not on that list….

Here he is, Mode2 – http://www.mode2.org/

What about Keith Haring?

Great collection! Really awesome!

good one

Nice post, thanks for sharing. I had seen a few before but most were new and some were amazing. Thumbs up NOT because you asked at the top of the page but because it was a good post (ie: no need to ask upfront).

Cum* nice stuff from Belgium.
If you walk in Ghent (BE) you can see some of the work “Cum In The Streets” on several buildings.

banksy and obey are not the same person…

Inspiring as hell.

Hey awesome article to come in to work and read for the cloudy Monday morning here in San Diego. Very talented individuals you chose to showcase here. Cities should support graffiti art such as this because it helps with the arts and culture and is a true representation of the public’s feelings, not some authorized piece by a committee of out of touch politicians.

On that note I wanted to let you all see something I just found out about last week. Its great inspiration for web developers and artists a like. Graffiti Archaeology. This guy put together a flash piece to show how certain graffiti hot spots change over time. Such an amazing idea.

Thanks again for the great inspirational start to the week. You all rock.

excelent!
fantastic art of Marco

amazing!

Bookmarked to send around anytime idiots say graffiti is vandalism and not art.

the first picture is sadly no longer existing. it was on the skate park in walsall (about 3 miles away from where i am) but the skate ark was recently knocked down to make way for a big apartment building. always enjoyed looking at it though… shame it had to go :(

Sory, but there is Daim ?

This is art! Great job.

Great scetched wall art!!

Hey i just wanted to say that this is some of the coolest art work i’ve seen lately. really cool

what about Bumblebee? http://www.flickr.com/photos/theuglyyou

Great graffitties!

obey’s official site is http://obeygiant.com

banksy and obey are not the same person, and banksy has had many commercial exibitions in london uk, and huge rage of books on the market.

At least this has given other artists the exposure they should get,also those out there with a real interest in this art form will no doubt be scurrying off and searching Daim(and other unmentioned artists)on the web.
This is an awesome collection by the way,all of these particular pieces are stunning,some thought provoking,others wickedly comical and all beautifully executed works of true art.

French guys Mode2 and 123Klan (Scien & Klor) should be in this list too…
Anyway too many amazing graffiti artists on earth to make a list that pleases everyone!

the “obey” picture is OBVIOUSLY stuck onto the wall.. you can see the creases!!

go watch “wild style” if you like this sort of thing:

http://www.guba.com/watch/3000021340

HEY!!!! why did you stop the full feed? give tit bacccckk

Interesting idea for an inspirational list.
Whether all of these (the majority) of the walls could be classified as graffiti is up for debate, of course. But I think that’s pretty irrelevant in this context.
Good that you’ve listed some old school heroes/bombers. Of course you can’t list every great writer ever to bomb this planet.

Shame not all pieces are properly attributed though.

@Starre Vartan
Don’cha worry, most real writers don’t care too much what people say. And a lot are quite happy with the vandal tag ;)

Omg! It’s fuckin good!

you left out Dondi? Where is Tats cru from nyc? And i agree with some previous comments… people like Daim and 123Klan deserve to be here too…

The unknown wheat pasting is Gaia in NY…

This is such an amazing collection of street art/ graff. It def. makes it noticeable the influence street art has on the design world…. there’s many instances street artists develop into designers as well and carry their influences into the corporate world.

Lady Pink also recently did a street art event in Upstate NY called: Electric Windows (which just won the 2008 Dutchess County Executive’s Arts Award for “Art in Public Places”.
Upso, Lady Pink, Cycle, Elbow Toe, Ripo and others participated.

http://www.electricwindowsbeacon.com/index2.html

Wonderful article! Thank you.

this recopilation is shit! go and take a look fo’da streets and you will see a lot of more fresh stuff than on this blog. sucks!

ESTAN BIEN VERGAS¡ SE LA RIFA ESTA PAGUINA CHIDO POR smashingmagazine.com

These are great. I love the color in Stuart Herbert’s design. It’s sharp but has a smooth flow to it. The simplicity of the Cloud -TA design is nice too.

Hey.
The 6th from the top – the UNKNOWN one is by an NYC artist name “GAIA”.

Probably should update that gangstar.

The “SABER” one is wrong. The pictures show the work of SEVER [also from msk/awr/tsl], not SABER…

Guy Fawkes is the photographer Zedz is the artist!!

Valla süper olmuş.

Some of these are amazing, but more than half of these suck shit.

Although I think they are all (mostly) accomplished artists, they should all be stood up against their respective walls and shot. How dare they impose their art on us. All graffiti is pretentious, contrived and unwelcome by society as a whole.A building’s facade is what it is. If they don’t like it then tough. Maybe I should go and defecate on their front doorstep because I don’t like the smell of their house.

By the way the “unknown” that goes with girls face is by artist “Swoon”. I’m almost sure of it. She’s based in NY.

jojo!! la Cagaron ESTOS PUTOS CABRONES, las imagenes… alucinantes, gracias a quienes nos llevan a otro mundo con su arte!! estoy exitaDO…

Nice collection! Love the star wars one

very cool

the first piece by Stuart Herbert (bright colours on the dark background) is actually a piece by a Welsh artist know as sadsak,hes brilliant,take a look at his stuff at : http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=2700167

secondly,obey(sheppards fairy) and banksy could easily be the same person seeing as banksy identity is hidden,and most information on him (such as being a Bristolian) could easily be fake,with not objective source whos to say! (personally i dont think they are,but their central themes and ideas are strikingly similar in some respects so its not that obscure an idea.

and for those that have posted hate against graffiti (vandalism and graffiti are no the same thing,graffiti is a typographical art form,vandalism is damage of public property,2 very different things), i think youve missed the point one of our human rights is FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, and the governments bad attitude towards graffiti in most countries raises a valid point,personally i dont like like tagging and bombing,but one thing i hate more is waking up to a dull grey city every day,and attempts at brightening it up are more than welcome to me,there are certainly more options and alternatives that could be taken towards graffiti (and vandalism of artistic form), why not have more legal places,in wales the legal places that are here are overrun with graffiti artists asking for more space because they dont want to do illegal work,why not listen people?

Lol…. I see that starwars “grafitti” everyday… I thought it was just a commish mural…. we have alot of those around town… >> now there’s a Giant tree on a building down the road. Its cool looking!

As with most of these “best of graffiti” blog posts, the majority of pictures and artists promoted here are NOT graffiti. What you really want to say is “street art”. As someone mentioned in a previous comment, graffiti is a TYPOGRAPHICAL art form that emphasizes stylized roman lettering above all else. Another bit of misinformation here is that graffiti started with territorial gang markings. No it didn’t. A sort of anonymous fame has always been the driving force behind the “graffiti” you’re referring to, which started in Philly and New York in the 60’s and 70’s. Many true graffiti artists wouldn’t take a second look at most of the stuff you’ve posted here if they saw it in real life, because it’s not graffiti. For instance, most writers don’t like banksy, who the public embraces for his artsy social commentary or whatever. These “best of ‘graffiti” blog posts do the opposite of their intention, which i presume to be an effort to raise ‘awareness’ of graffiti as a legitimate art form. These posts only reinforce the idea that this street art stuff is the ‘good’ graffiti (the stuff thats pretty to look at for people who don’t understand it), but those tags on the side of your office are bad and should be condemned. I’d rater see your, and my, office, house and city streets completely covered with handstyles and two-color throw-ups than this art-school-trying-to-acquire-street-cred nonsense ignorant people take for graffiti. Just because it’s on the street and not in a gallery doen’t make it graffiti.

just a reply to jackson (comment 110) banksy is no longer an unknown, he is a millionaire, in fact even one of his close friends from back in the day sold his van (adorned with banksy art on all panels) and set up his whole family.
to “real writer” i do have respect for some that tag, either those impossible to get to spots (extreme tagging) or those that make a nice looking tag, but lets face it when your on the train and you see the same tag over and over and put over some nice looking street art or whatever it gets real old real quick. and while you may technically be right about graf being only typographical language is an evolving thing and the term graffiti is commonly used to describe street art and as such its official meaning will change to reflect this unless we stop using it in this way – we meaning everyone except you since we are the majority and we own the english language (i so hope your going to point out graffiti is a latin word and as such part of a dead language, cause while technically true this would mean that english has no words since it is a mish mash of other languages)

Alex Pardee is missing here.

terbear06.deviantart.com I have a few graffiti posted of what i have found in Hemet, ca. i love graffiti yes i call it that.. does it really matter if i call it STREET ART? I know its art. and so do you. so I will call it graffiti and not be PC.. BY THE WAY this article is awesome!

El de “Marco” esta demasiado brutalll…

(EN) “Marco” it’s the most AWESOME…

En Caracas (Venezuela) tambien hay varios demasiado buenos…

(EN) In Caracas (Venezuela), there is also very good..

SALUDOS de Venezuela

With the exception of a few most of those were Legals, Which other than being on the street does not make them street art. Alot of those pictures make me sick because they are painted by yuppie beatniks who have some half baked reason for wanting to express themselves and choose to mooch off the graffiti culture to get there. for those of you who want real street art go to youtube and search Above1, Doug, or any Stompdown video. Peace. Dose, KSB BPB repin the midwest

Excellent Arts..

very good this gallery!
has a selection of typography and graffiti here: http://a-ham.com/typograff/

@Manup: if you see it often, it can either be the name of an artist or the name of the crew (group/team) this artist is a part of.

These are gorgeous. I wish there was graffiti like this closer to me, I miss seeing amazing pieces like this in person.

i really liked it

What can i say? The art work is freaking dope!It’s 2009 and looking at all this masterpieces is really inspiring. How i wish i was somewhere nearby to witness the artist at work. It’s a new year and i want to do something out of my normal league. I saw this job posting

There are some Bad-A drawings up there, man! Makes me want to Tag again.

Newfie Bullet and Lady Pink’s Lettering is just sick.

where is DAIM? He’s the best for me. Banksy is too commercial, everybody talks about him, but so many other artists got actualy better skills…. good list anyway.