Art

Using the name Tracy 168, he was a pioneering graffiti artist during the tumultuous 1970s and ’80s in New York.Michael Tracy, a Bronx-bred graffiti artist known as Tracy 168 who turned subway cars into rolling canvases for his spray-paint murals, becoming a breakout star of the New York streets in the 1970s in an outlaw medium that became central to early hip-hop culture, died on Sept. 3 in the Bronx. He was 65.His death, of a heart attack, was confirmed by his niece Liza Tracy. It was not widely reported at the time.Mr. Tracy, who started out tagging buses at the end of the 1960s, became one of the most prominent — if anonymous — graffiti artists in the 1970s and ’80s, an era when subway trains slathered in colorful bubble letters and cartoonish images became an internationally recognized visual trope of New York culture.To some, this explosion of illegal folk art was a bleak symbol of a battered city plagued by lawlessness; to others, it was an emblem of an era of creativity and hedonistic abandon, and one that gave voice to marginalized youth from tough neighborhoods who otherwise felt they had little.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More