Collection: John "Crash" Matos

John “Crash” Matos (born in the Bronx, New York, in 1961) is one of the historic pioneers of graffiti's passage from the street to the canvas. Galerie Bonnet-Abelin represents him in Lyon, where it devoted a solo exhibition to him in autumn 2025, and presents below a group of the artist's recent works.

The Bronx, the trains, the legend

Crash began painting New York subway cars at thirteen — his nom de guerre came from a high-school computer he crashed. At nineteen, in 1980, he organised “Graffiti Art Success for America” at Fashion Moda in the South Bronx, regarded as one of the founding acts of graffiti's recognition by the art world. In the years that followed he exhibited alongside Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Futura 2000, and took part in 1983 in the legendary “Post-Graffiti” exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery, which sealed the movement's entry into Manhattan's galleries.

A pop vocabulary turned classic

His style — comic-book framing, blazing flat colours, fragmented lettering, nods to Lichtenstein's Pop Art — has made him a living classic of urban art. His works are held in major museum collections, from MoMA in New York to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and his “Crashocasters”, Fender guitars painted for Eric Clapton, have carried his gesture onto the world's greatest stages. Forty years after the Bronx trains, Crash still paints with aerosol, with the same graphic precision and the same chromatic exuberance.

Crash and Galerie Bonnet-Abelin

The gallery presented Crash in a solo show in Lyon in autumn 2025, with a group of aerosols on canvas and specially created metal panels, then presented him alongside JonOne at the Urban Art Fair in Paris in March 2026, for the fair's tenth-anniversary edition — an event covered by Connaissance des Arts. Two New York legends under one Lyon banner.

Acquiring a work by Crash

The works below — 2025 aerosols on canvas, including the “Canvasthetics” series and the circular metal panels — are available at the gallery, 36 avenue Foch, Lyon 6ᵉ, and can be viewed by appointment. Each work comes with its certificate of authenticity. The gallery, currently preparing its Geneva location, also assists Swiss and international collectors. Prices, full documentation and acquisition advice on request: contact@galeriebonnetabelin.com. Art leasing solutions for companies.