Paintings By Graffiti Artist Phase 2 Stolen From East Village Building

Paintings by a renowned Bronx graffiti writer were stolen last month from a Manhattan space. Now police have released images of the suspect, as well as the paintings by Phase 2.

Police say that around 3:40 a.m., someone threw a brick through a window of 67 Avenue C, and took three paintings.

The Post reports that the space is the "A2Z in NYC studio on Avenue C," and that the paintings are worth an estimated $18,000.

Phase 2 is credited with developing the bubble letter-style of graffiti, called "softies." born Michael Lawrence Marrow in Manhattan, he died at age 64 from Lou Gehrig's disease in December. His NY Times obituary notes that he grew up in The Bronx: "in the early 1970s [he] was one of the most prolific, inventive and emulated New York graffiti writers, and who later produced early hip-hop’s most innovative fliers... In the South Bronx at the dawn of the 1970s, all the creative components that would coalesce into what became widely known as hip-hop were beginning to take shape. At the center of them all was Phase 2, an intuitive, disruptive talent who first made his mark as a writer of graffiti — although he hated the term."

Alan Ket wrote on the Museum of Graffiti website, "The artist who went by a variety of names including True, True Mathematics, Phase Too, Lonnie Wood and Lonnie Marrow is considered widely to be the architect of the writing movement that many call graffiti, a term that he rejected in life due to its derogatory implications." Ket continued:

A child of the civil rights era, Phase was an activist and agitator, who rallied for writers to control their destiny and their movement. He started painting at the dawn of the writing movement in the Bronx in 1971 (from his home base in Forest Projects) and was mentored by LEE163. In 1972 he became a founding member of the collective United Graffiti Artists (“UGA”) and exhibited his paintings in the first-ever organized art exhibitions to focus on the writers. With the birth of Hip Hop approaching he served as both architect and artist by rapping, dancing, and creating the early flyers that would define the jams of the era.

By the 1980s he would emerge as one of the key artists to transition from trains to canvas but continued to contribute to the train movement by returning to paint monumental pieces. He would eventually go on tour around the world and introduced the movement to such far off places like Australia. His work broke free of the letterform and he would go on to create mixed media works, music (Phase II – The Roxy (1982) Celluloid Records) and sculptures. His influence grew with the publishing of the ground-breaking zine International Graffiti Times (“IGT”), in the late 1980s. He would continue to paint and exhibit around the world while giving lectures at universities and serving as the voice of reason and wisdom to writers worldwide.

"His impact with the development of letters, ethics, conduct and attitude within the writing community and Hip Hop will be forever felt and he shall be remembered as the godfather of the writing movement," Ket concluded.

The NYPD released this video of the suspect:

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, or on Twitter @ NYPDTips.