Shepard Fairey

Earth Crisis Letterpress, Obey, Shepard Fairey Activism Street Art Print

2015

Edition 397/450 Signed to lower right This is another in my series of images to encourage people to rethink fossil fuel consumption. This one is a bit of a tribute to the Ramones an...

Edition Details: Year: 2014 Class: Art Print Status: Official Released: 10/16/14 Run: 376/400 Technique: Letterpress Paper: 100% Cotton Lettre Fine Art Paper Size: 10 X 13 Markings: Signed & Numbered by the artist in pencil, Shepard Fairey. Frank Shepard Fairey was born February 15, 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Fairey's adolescence was shaped by the influences of punk-rock and skateboarding. In his teens, he began creating his own bootlegged clothing and skateboard decals featuring bands and brands he liked. Fairey’s early bootlegs were created because his generally conservative parents would not purchase the clothing he wanted. In 1986, he stumbled upon the Andre the Giant image for which he has become famous for, in a local newspaper. The image was selected when Fairey demonstrated to a friend how to make a stencil; it was modified slightly to include the meaningless caption “Andre the Giant has a Posse” and made into a sticker. The sticker was reproduced en masse and began to appear around Charleston as it spread through the skateboarding community. While the sticker had no inherent meaning, the public response varied from disregard to curiosity to out-right fear. Civic groups editorialized and theorized that the Andre image was affiliated with everything from a band to a hate group. Nevertheless, the stickers were considered vandalism and in time, Fairey would face numerous charges for defacing public property. Fairey's record includes 15 arrests as of March 2009, for defacing property as a result of his so called bombing campaigns. Fairey affixed the stickers on municipal properties nearly everywhere he went, and the Andre sticker was being seen in Boston and New York City, soon others procured the image and were encouraged to spread the campaign worldwide in the form of stickers, stencils and wheat-paste posters. Following high school, Fairey was accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where, with an interest in screen printing, he majored in illustration. In 1992, while still attending RISD, Fairey started Alternate Graphics, a mail order catalog business through which he could merchandise his own t-shirts, skateboards, posters and stickers. He also took small commercial illustration jobs to help supplement his income. Shortly thereafter, the Andre the Giant Has a Posse logo was shortened simply to Obey Giant. The Obey, for which Fairey has also become synonymous, is derived from the 1988 John Carpenter film They Live. In the film, aliens who appear as human, rule the governments and economies of the world while the humans are reduced to an unwitting, hypnotized slave-class. Themes from the film continue to appear in Fairey’s work. Over time, the Andre the Giant face was modified into a more simplified and streamlined appearance, reminiscent of Russian Constructivist/Rodchenko style Soviet propaganda posters of the 20th Century. In 1994, filmmaker Helen Stickler featured Fairey and his sticker phenomenon in her documentary: Andre the Giant has a Posse. The following year, Fairey started Subliminal Projects with the late Blaize Blouin, his friend and pro-skateboarder. Subliminal Projects created and released several Obey-Giant themed posters and skateboard decks. Fairey directed a short skateboarding film featuring some of his friends through Subliminal Projects and Alternate Graphics titled A.D.D.(Attention Deficit Disorder). In 1996, Fairey moved to San Diego, California to create Giant Distribution with partner Andy Howell. Later, with Howell, Phillip De Wolff, Dave Kinsey, he formed First Bureau of Imagery (FBI), a branding, marketing and design firm established to focus on the increasingly lucrative sports market. FBI was closed in 1999 and Fairey, along with De Wolff and Kinsey created BLK/MRKT, similar to FBI. At this time, Fairey met and began working with Amanda Alaya, whom he would later marry. BLK/MRKT moved to Los Angeles in 2001. Here, they could expand and were able to incorporate a small gallery. Fairey and Kinsey eventually bought out De Wolff’s share of the partnership and by then had set up offices in the Pellissier Building (home of the historic Wiltern Theater...

3 color Letterpress on 100% cotton lettre paper, 110# with deckled edges. Signed and numbered edition of 235/450. OBEY publishing chop on lower left corner. 10 inches x 13 inches

"This Church of Consumption print deals with themes I've addressed pretty consistently over the years material obsession, patterns around social currency and status signifiers, and c...

Wake Up Earth, Letterpress Print on Cream Cotton Paper, 2020 Letterpress on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges. Limited edition of 500 (signed) This work is in excellent con...

A print by Shepard Fairey. “11th Hour” is a contemporary, popular culture screenprint in black, red, and white by American street artist Shepard Fairey. The artwork is signed in penc...

'Universal Personhood' by Shepard Fairey, 2013 18 x 24 Inches (45,7 x 61 cm) Screen print on cream, speckle tone fine art paper Limited edition of 450 (#388/450) Hand-signed and dat...

SHEPARD FAIREY Global Warning - Global Warming (Andy Warhol Edition), 2009 Silkscreen on wove paper 24 × 18 inches Pencil signed and numbered 264/450 on the front Unframed Global Warning - Global Warming - is the rare pink Andy Warhol edition, separate from the regular red edition. Limited Edition hand signed, dated and numbered silkscreen print created exclusively for the opening of Shepard Fairey's "Supply and Demand" Exhibition at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. This incredibly popular screenprint sold out very soon after the sale was announced by the museum. Fairey's "Global Warming", featuring a sunbathing woman covering herself with the aptly titled "Sun" newspaper, directly attacks the right-wing who deny the science of climate change, and even features his own Windmill Power poster...