History of the Festival

The I Madonnari Street Painting Festival is the first festival of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. It was created in 1987 by Kathy Koury, the former executive director of the Children’s Creative Project, as a fundraising event to benefit the arts education programs. Now there are more than 100 similar street painting festivals throughout the U.S., Canada, Central and South America.

Ms. Koury traveled to Italy in 1986, to visit the International Street Painting Competition in the small town of Grazie di Curtatone in northern Italy near Mantova. This first international event produced by the Centro Italiano Madonnari since 1972, takes place annually in mid-August.  

Street painting probably began in Italy during the 16th century and has a long tradition in cities in Western Europe. Artists began street painting by traveling to Catholic religious and folk festivals where they drew images of the Madonna using chalk on the street.  These artists became known as “Madonnari” or street painters. Their images are called street paintings because when well drawn they resemble paintings. These artists lived and still live from the viewers’ coins thrown onto the street paintings in appreciation for the work.