James Prigoff Collection

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James Prigoff is a photographer, author and lecturer on the subject of urban murals and aerosol art. Prigoff has been documenting public art for over thirty years. Prigoff first photographed murals during his travels in Europe and Mexico in the sixties. It wasn’t until the early eighties that Prigoff seriously recorded spraycan art.

Some of Prigoff’s most important photos appear in the book he co-authored with photographer Henry Chalfant called Spraycan Art (Thames and Hudson, 1987). His world-renowned book not only documented aerosol art movements from its infancy in the United States and all over the world, but inspired additional movements around the world, as well. James Prigoff co-authored other books including Painting the Towns-Murals of California and Walls of Heritage-Walls of Pride, which looks at the history of African-American mural art.

In 2000 his work was displayed in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition 100 Years of California Art. In 2001 Prigoff curated an exhibit called Painting and Politics featuring his own work at the Social and Public Art Resource Center gallery in Venice, California. Prigoff has been invited to speak at museums and universities all over the globe including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Vancouver Art Museum and Stanford University.

He received his B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is considered one of their most distinguished graduates.

The James Prigoff collection presently is limited to 429 slides, overwhelmingly of mural art and of spray can art, visually documenting important aspects of the Chicano  art movement in California, in particular in the San Diego and Tijuana area.