pavement artistn.
/ˈpeɪvm(ə)nt ˌɑːtɪst/, U.S. /ˈpeɪvmən(t) ˈɑrdəst/ 1. Chiefly British.
a. A person who creates pictures on paving stones with coloured chalks or pastels (or on paper, canvas, etc., laid on the pavement) in order to earn money from passers-by.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > painting and drawing > painting > painting according to medium or technique > [noun] > pavement artist
shallow screever1839
screever1841
flagstone artist1862
pavement artist1869
1869 ‘ECA’ Count Teleki xxi. 380 He becomes a member of the Confraternity of Cadgers..a sightless soldier, or a pavement artist.
1894 H. S. Marks Pen & Pencil Sketches II. 100 The pavement-artist, or ‘scriever’, as he is called in the profession.
1899 Daily News 1 Aug. 6/4 No one but the pavement-artist can have any notion of how great the amount of dust is in London's streets.
1957 Trans. Inst. Brit. Geographers No. 23. 16 I see little difference between a Professor going cap in hand to a Foundation and a pavement artist's waiting cap on the pavement.
1991 Independent (Nexis) 7 Sept. 35 Unlike the old-fashioned pavement artists who chalked a fresh picture daily on to the flagstones, today's artists tape their canvases to the pavement and roll them up when they knock off.
b. An artist who works in the street or other open-air, public place, and sells his or her paintings, drawings, etc., to passers-by.
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1910 R. Fry Lett. (1972) I. 333 Will you bring your £10 picture with you... Is it by a pavement artist?
1995 Time Out 6 Dec. 173/3 Hearne leaves work each morning for his city job, but in reality he's long since been sacked and earns his crust as a pavement artist.
2001 Guardian (Nexis) 18 June 2 Pavement artists on Piccadilly were putting their paintings into their cars.
2. slang. An undercover agent engaged in surveillance of a person, building, etc., and operating outdoors, typically on foot.
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1977 ‘J. le Carré’ Honourable Schoolboy v. 109 The Circus's depleted team of pavement-artists had taken a look at his back and declared it clean.
1980 Washington Post (Nexis) 29 Sept. d1 Cornwell as John le Carre has said that he made up most of the authentic-sounding jargon that personalizes the circus and its spy business bureaucrats—terms like ‘scalp hunters’, ‘baby-sitters’, ‘lamp-lighters’ and ‘pavement artists’.
1984 P. Beale Partridge's Dict. Slang (ed. 8) 860/2 Pavement artist, an espionage agent acting as a ‘leg man’—surveillance and street attendance on a suspect: espionage since ca. 1945.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1869