Leonard Hilton McGurr Net Worth, Income, Salary, Earnings, Biography

Futura, previously known as “Futura 2000,” is a graffiti artist from the United States. In the early 1970s, he began painting illegally on the New York City subway system, sometimes in collaboration with other painters such as ALI. In the early 1980s, he exhibited at the Fun Gallery alongside Patti Astor, as well as with Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton, and Kenny Scharf, among other artists. Futura painted backdrops live on stage for the European tour of British punk music band The Clash, which took place in 1981. In more recent years, he has established himself as a prominent graphic designer and gallery artist. Futura’s work is distinguished by his abstract approach to graffiti art, which is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of his work. While writing remained the primary emphasis of the majority of graffiti artists throughout the 1980s, Futura was a pioneer in the development of abstract street art, which has since become more popular. His aerosol strokes, on the other hand, are considered to be distinct from those of his contemporaries since they are as thin as the tiny lines that can only be produced via the use of an airbrush. However, while he is best known as a graffiti artist, the majority of his work is as an illustrator and graphic designer of record sleeves. He first became involved with The Clash in the 1980s, producing a sleeve for their 7″ single “This Is Radio Clash” and handwriting the sleeve notes and lyrics sheet for their album Combat Rock. 

As part of The Clash’s Combat Rock tours, he travelled widely with the band, “performing” alongside them on stage by spray painting backgrounds as the band played. Years later, James Lavelle revived Futura’s career by commissioning him, together with Ben Drury, to design the artwork for numerous Mo’ Wax records albums; this also resulted in Futura creating the iconography that has come to characterise Lavelle’s Unkle project to a significant extent. While in his twenties, he worked with apparel businesses such as GFS, Subware, and Project Dragon, among others. 

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