Kevin Campbell Mural at Morleys Brixton Starts This Week

Work on a mural to the Brixton-born footballer Kevin Campbell begins on Morleys department store this week. Lambeth Council says the artist is Itaewon, the working name of Jake Attewell, and that “installation is scheduled to begin during the week commencing 24 August” (Lambeth Council). That week starts today.

The council is running the commission with two partners:

• the Kevin Campbell Foundation, set up by Campbell’s family
• Morleys Department Store, which owns the wall

The council says the mural “will be painted on the exterior of Morleys Department Store”. It has not published which elevation, or a date for finishing or unveiling, and we have not seen either stated anywhere first hand.

Who is being commemorated

Campbell was born in Brixton and played for Arsenal before a career that took in Everton. He died in 2024. The Foundation’s own site records the loss plainly: it was created by his family “as a result of the ex-professional footballer’s passing in 2024, at the tender age of 54” (Kevin Campbell Foundation).

Councillor Martin Abrams, Leader of Lambeth Council, said in the council’s statement:

“Kevin Campbell was one of Brixton’s own. He achieved success at the very highest level of football, but he never lost sight of where he came from or the importance of giving back to his community.”

Lorna Campbell, from the Foundation, said the family “wanted the mural to celebrate not only everything Kevin achieved in football, but also the values he lived by and the community he loved”. The artist said Campbell’s “journey from Brixton to the very top of English football is an inspiring story”.

The building already carries Brixton’s most famous mural

Morleys is at 472 to 488 Brixton Road, SW9 8EH, and opens Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 19.00 and Sunday 11.00 to 17.00 (Morleys).

The store’s Tunstall Road wall is where the David Bowie mural has been since 2013. Lambeth’s own record of it is specific: Bowie was “immortalised in a mural on the wall of Morley’s department store, in Tunstall Road”, a painting “completed in June 2013 by Australian James Cochran” and “inspired by the album cover of the 1973 album Aladdin Sane” (Lambeth Council). After Bowie’s death in January 2016 the council said it was working to preserve the flowers and messages left in front of it, and was “in contact with Morleys Brixton, the department store, about how best to do this”.

So the same building is about to carry a second tribute to a Brixton figure who left and stayed known for where he came from.

What the Foundation is

The Kevin Campbell Foundation is a registered charity, number 1210140. It is a charitable incorporated organisation, filed at Companies House under CE037615 (Companies House).

Its stated object is to “advance the lives of children and young people through the provision of support and activities or providing funding, which develops their skills, capacities and capabilities to empower and enable them to realise their full potential”. The council says the mural will also “help raise awareness of the Foundation’s ongoing work”.

What it means for you

If you want to watch it go up, Brixton Road outside Morleys is the place, and this week is when the work is due to start. Nothing has been announced about scaffolding, pavement space or any effect on the store’s trading hours, so treat the shop as open as normal until told otherwise.

There is no unveiling date in the public domain yet. If one is set we will carry it, and we will not guess at it in the meantime.

The council frames the commission as part of its work “supporting the borough’s creative economy and using public art to celebrate local stories”. That is worth holding onto when the next one is announced: this is a policy, not a one-off.

More Brixton and Clapham listings are on our things to do in Clapham page, and decisions affecting local buildings are tracked on our Clapham planning news page.