Owen Dippie, a celebrated street artist from Kawerau, New Zealand, specializes in large-scale photo-realistic murals. He has visited New York City many times, painting and paying homage to the “mecca of graffiti” in various ways.

Dippie’s two fields of expertise, photo-realism and historicallyconscious graffiti references, merge exquisitely in the work Interpretation Of The Book Cover Of Subway Art (2010) shown here. He created a meticulous reconstruction of the cover of Subway Art as it was designed for the original first edition – a loving homage to the “bible of graffiti,” the highly influential collaboration between Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. The publication of this book was a breakthrough for the art movement’s visibility as much as it was a catalyst for young people around the world to take up graffiti themselves, not only in New York but in places as far away as New Zealand.

On loan courtesy of the Gewobag collection.