Beloved San Francisco Graffiti Godfather Cuba’s (AKA – Clarence Robbs) has been painting an epic series of autobiographical books illuminating both his enigmatic life and an encyclopedic history of graffiti letterform in the United States. Each hand-painted book passionately conveys a chapter of Cuba’s unique journey through the culture and politics of the USA. Unbound by any (read White?) conventions of either biography or book-making, the book forms and titles in this open series of unique books have more in common with medieval Arabic manuscripts than with contemporary printed limited edition artists’ books.

AUTO BIO GRAPHY is the new sub-series in the larger body of Cuba’s autobiographies, this volume, #ONE, portrays Cuba as a teenager and focuses on four crucial elements of his life. The first being his self-motivated enrollment in the Baltimore Experimental High School, a democratically run school founded by Quaker Minister Fred Rutledge. The second was his encounter, in Baltimore, of the graffiti of NYC writer REVOLT (or Dr. REVOLT). REVOLT mostly wrote in Queens, Brooklyn, NY, and he was a major force in the New York graffiti scene of the 1970s and 80s. He was an original member of the historic NYC subway graffiti crew, The Rolling Thunder Writers (RTW). The writing ‘tour’ of Baltimore that Revolt did in the 1970s, which Cuba writes about being strongly influenced by, is attributed by some graffiti historians, as having introduced NYC style to the Baltimore graffiti scene. The third was realizing that he was born to do graffiti and his starting to do what he describes as, “scribbling” on the walls. The third was his decision to primarily use the tag “Cuba.”

Binding: Sophia Kramer
Book Design: Marshall Weber
Archive of Cuba’s books
Institutional Collectors: University of Delaware