The 50 Most Influential Street Artists of All Time

These are the names you need to know in street art.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Street art has been around for decades now, and it's one of the most popular but also amorphous genres of art today. Generations of artists to have sprung up and then disappeared, and the art form has been around long enough for a set of artists to emerge who have come to influence the overall genre. For this list, we have tried to look at artists throughout street art's history to gauge their influence on street art and art in general. The end result is our best estimate of the The 50 Most Influential Street Artists of All Time, both influential globally and in specific locales or subgenres of street art as well as over the course of street art's history. We made this list to serve as a starting point for debate. Here's our take. What's yours?

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50. Magda Sayeg of Knitta, Please

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49. MOMO and El Tono

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48. The Reader

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47. Cekis

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46. Mr. Brainwash

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45. Swampy

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44. Ha-Ha

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43. Roa

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42. Stinkfish

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41. Escif

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40. El Xupet Negre

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39. Anthony Lister

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38. WK Interact

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37. Meggs of Everfresh

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36. Jaz

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35. Gaia

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34. INTI

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33. Darius and Downey

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32. Neck Face

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31. Sam3

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30. Logan Hicks

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29. Dan Witz

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28. Ben Eine

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27. Billboard Liberation Front

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26. Margaret Kilgallen

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25. Guy Debord of Letterist International and Situationist International

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24. Invader

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23. JR

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22. Guerrilla Girls

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21. D*face

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20. Miss Van

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19. Jenny Holzer

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18. Blu

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17. Charlie Todd's Improv Everywhere

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Hometown: Columbia, S.C.
Years active: 2001 - Present

Charlie Todd's group Improv Everywhere are perhaps the less revolutionary heirs to the Situationist throne. They have organized tens of thousands of people to participate in public actions that creatively disrupt everyday lives. Improv Everywhere's annual No Pants Subway Ride had grown to epic proportions, and satellite events have sprung up in cities around the world. Improv Everywhere is influential because it reaches out and influences people who might never break the law to put up a wheat-paste, but they might get a group of twenty friends together to freeze in place in the middle of a shopping mall.

16. Ron English

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15. Stephen Powers

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14. Faile and Bast

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13. John Fekner

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12. Barry McGee

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11. KAWS

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10. Barbara Kruger

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9. Swoon

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8. COST and REVS

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7. Gordon Matta-Clark

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Hometown: New York
Years active: 1970 - 1978

Although you might not see a lot of street art in the style of Gordon Matta-Clark's sliced-up buildings, the work inspired street artists like Swoon and John Fekner, sowing the seeds for the street art movement that would blossom after seeing the way that he changed public spaces and worked directly with found environments. It's easy to forget that a lot of street artists went to art school, and Matta-Clark is one of the artists that many of them would have studied.

6. Blek le Rat

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5. Os Gemeos

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4. Jean-Michel Basquiat

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3. Shepard Fairey

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2. Keith Haring

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1. Banksy

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