Blek le Rat

Blek le Rat is the working name of Xavier Prou, a French street artist born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1951. After encountering New York graffiti in 1971, he began placing stencilled rats on Paris walls in 1981, choosing a technique he felt suited the city’s architecture.

By 1983 he was making human-sized stencil figures. His repeated silhouettes and use of recognisable figures helped establish stencilling as a major form of street art, with images conceived for encounters in public space.