Futura

Leonard Hilton McGurr, known as Futura (formerly Futura 2000), began his artistic career in the early 1970s, tagging subway trains and walls, but quickly stood out for breaking away from traditional graffiti lettering. Instead, he introduced abstract, space-age forms that helped redefine what graffiti could be. By the early 1980s, Futura had transitioned into the contemporary art scene, exhibiting alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. His first solo exhibition was held at the iconic Fun Gallery in 1982.

Futura is recognized as a pioneer of abstract graffiti. Unlike most of his peers, he focused on freeform composition rather than stylized text, developing a visual language of dynamic spray lines, atmospheric color gradients, and minimal, often cosmic shapes. His signature motifs — such as atom-like orbits, pointman characters, and planetary fields — combine graffiti’s energy with the visual poetics of abstraction. His work draws influence from science fiction, street culture, and punk aesthetics, reflecting a futurist vision that bridges fine art and subculture.

One of Futura’s early breakthroughs was the abstract piece Break (1980), which covered an entire subway car in non-text-based imagery. Over the years, he expanded into painting, sculpture, printmaking, and fashion collaborations. In 2024–2025, he received his first major retrospective in New York, FUTURA 2000: BREAKING OUT, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, featuring five decades of work. Around the same time, Paris hosted Futura: The Artist’s Journey at La Fab, an expansive exhibition showcasing large-scale canvases, archival photos, and multidisciplinary projects that solidified his legacy as a bridge between street art, abstraction, and contemporary design.