Street Art

[booze and cake]

In the spirit of learning stuff along the way, here's some art and history stuff wot I discovered. On an island surrounded by the A11 sits St Mary's Church in Bow, and in its grounds sits this multi-coloured bench

Its by Lindsey Mendick and commemorates Albert Turpin, a key member of the East London Group, a working class art club in the East End from the 1920's. The pastel colours of the bench reflects the colours the group often used to paint their surroundings. A close up on the bench shows it has this pencil sharpener permanently attached.

It also has this plaque

Turpin was an Eastender, an area of poverty and hardship, but with a strong sense of community. Having worked in the army and fire service, been an artist and window cleaner, socialist and the Mayor of Bethnal Green, he was also prominent in taking a public stand against Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists in the famous battle of Cable St, a riot in 1936, depicted in this mural at Cable St.

More info: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/10/28/the-working-artist-the-east-london-group/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/06/12/albert-turpin-artist-window-cleaner-mayor-of-bethnal-green/
A thrown bottle away from St Mary's Church, is the Bow Bells pub, proudly showing the area still has strong anti-right wing feelings, with this banner outside

A man of strong morals Turpin refused to clean the windows of pubs, as his mother had died of cirrhosis of the liver, so while he would undoubtedly have disapproved of the premises, I think he'd approve of the banner.

On my way back I pass the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve (I kid you not, it exists!), which is home to Phytology, http://phytology.org.uk/about/ which amongst other things has a medicinal field, and referencing that artist Vhils has carved this intricate work out of the wall plaster which is excellent.

More info here:

I'm now a bit more learned than I was this morning .

 

[booze and cake]

Oh and I also saw a Transit van today with street art on, which is a great improvement, and I'm surprised we don't see more of this.

 

[TVC]

This has just been completed near me at one of the entrances to the meadows.

 

[Reynard]

Saw a feature on the East London Group on the TV not too long ago - I think it was to highlight an upcoming exhibition of their work. Apparently a lot of their work was destroyed, sadly.

 

[booze and cake]

@Reynard yes I'd heard a lot of it ended up on bonfires, harsh!

Here's Winnie the Pooh and friends in some sort of haunted wood scene, if only there was some kind of bears, pooh and woods reference I could think of

And I like this, though I have'nt got the foggiest idea whats going on. I think there's a dead cat in the Nike box, but as for the rest of it, answers on a postcard....

 

[Reynard]

@Reynard yes I'd heard a lot of it ended up on bonfires, harsh

In some cases, it were family members who destroyed the paintings after the death of the artists. It's such a shame really. Though they might not have been to everyone's taste, they are still really valid as works of art.

 

[booze and cake]

Venus de Milo sporting some new prosthetics in Hackney

This is in Peckham, I not sure who this is, Pete Doherty perhaps?

This is on the side of a deli in Oval

A new one on Hanbury St

And these final 3 are all in Penge

 

[booze and cake]

After lunch and a bike change for the flatlands, I went out again this afternoon and saw this, which is topical after the pair have been trading insults again overnight, with Kim calling Donald 'old' and the man child Trump responding by saying he would'nt call Kim 'short and fat'...except you just did you plank!

And while papping the next one, I got recognised as the guy who photographs street art with his bike, fame at last! As it turns out my spotter, Beverley, is also a street art fan who photographs art works around Shoreditch for the 'Shoreditch Shooter', I tried looking this up when I got home but could'nt find any website or blogs, instead just getting links for people being shot in Shoreditch . Anyway it was great to meet another fan, and she showed me a few other pics on her phone she'd recently taken. She also told me I'd just missed the artist Shok-1 who had done this earlier in the day to commemorate Remembrance Sunday, so another very topical one. The work is rather brilliantly called 'master peace'. Shame I missed the artist as their works are amongst my favourites, but nice to meet you, and thanks Beverley

 

[booze and cake]

I don't know if it was done by the artist, the council or someone else, but the Beetlejuice one on the previous page has been touched up and the scrawls removed, allowing me the chance to get a better pic before it happens again, result.

Here's Sex Pistols manager Malcolm Mclaren in Stoke Newington by Stewy (not @swee'pea99 )

Stewy also did the Tony Benn one in Bristol I photographed on my recent visit. I was just doing some interweb searching on him and discovered he's done a series of stencils of famous Yorkshire folk riding bikes, at various places along the Yorkshire Tour de France route. See attached link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27813585
I immediately recognised the David Hockney one from the 'your cycle in front of wall pics thread'. I've just spent ages scrolling through to find it, it was posted by @wayneo on page 21, see here: https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/your-cycle-in-front-of-a-wall-pics.201903/post-4449370
....but hang on, super sleuth alert, notice @wayneo's post does'nt have any water overflow pipe on the wall, but the one on the BBC link above does, so this makes me think there's more than one, hmm a mystery. Wayneo did'nt tell us where his pic above was taken, if he's still here maybe can he confirm please so we can solve this mystery? . The BBC article goes on to say that unfortunately the Alan Bennett one in Leeds has already been painted over, robbing @growingvegetables of a good local bike related pic.
And to finish here's a very 21st century scene, a new one in Fleur de Lis St, they are probably saving their vocal chords and actually texting each other.

 

[booze and cake]

Another new Maikel Walkman on Hackney Rd

I also found two more Otto Schade ones, this first one I initially thought was two people doing a 'high 5' but on closer inspection it looks like they are racing to swat a fly that is sat on a detonator type button. There's plenty of other stuff going on here too.

And this smiley face is loosely based on a map of London with the Thames as the mouth......actually this is a closer representation

 

[booze and cake]

 

[booze and cake]

These two new finds were next to each other

 

[Tim Hall]

Whizzing up to Hyde Park Corner for the Monopoly Ride, I went through the middle of East Croydon. Just by Davis House I saw these two:

Astroboy

Rag Doll. Both by Dotmaster as part of a street art festival. Sadly Rag Doll is obscured by scaffolding.

Then a bit later:

Churchill, obvs. By David Hollier. He's a New York based Brit, but popped over to do a few pieces.

Then on the ride we went to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there's a sculpture called Camdonian. There's a blog post saying what a nasty thing it is, the writer clearly wasn't struck by it. Here it is from the front:

A bit "meh". But go round the back, and someone has wielded a Sharpie to good effect:

Voila: An elephant.

Clink Street, our Go To Jail stop o the Monopoly Board had a flame throwing tuba player, with Shakespeare as a back drop.

Finally, Cable Street had this (I think it's been mentioned but not pictured before).

 

[Tim Hall]

Just realised I missed two.

This is by, umm, that place with the tube trains on the roof (you can see one in the background)

While this is somewhere in Islington. @User can you help with the location?

 

[booze and cake]

Great stuff @Tim Hall, I thought for a minute there Croydon had made it onto the Monopoly board. I've tagged the Winston one before and think that's great, the same artist also did a great Amy Johnson one in Croydon back in 2015, but its already gone unfortunately. I'm a big fan of Dan Kitchener and his rainy night scenes, so thanks a lot for that.
I've been up in Camden, where some people just stand around trying to look cool.

And there's a new Faunagraphic piece on Miller St