1. Shepard Fairey's work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Shepard Fairey was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina.
Shepard Fairey's father, Strait Fairey, is a doctor, and his mother, Charlotte, a realtor.
Shepard Fairey attended Porter-Gaud School in Charleston and transferred to high school at Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, California, from which he graduated in 1988.
Shepard Fairey became involved with art in 1984, when he started to place his drawings on skateboards and T-shirts.
Shepard Fairey moved to Rhode Island in 1988 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design.
Shepard Fairey created the "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign in 1989, while attending the Rhode Island School of Design.
Shepard Fairey intended the Obey Giant to inspire curiosity and cause people to question their relationship with their surroundings.
Shepard Fairey has spun off the OBEY clothing line from the original sticker campaign.
Shepard Fairey uses the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan.
Shepard Fairey has stated in an interview that part of his work is inspired by other street artists.
In 2005 Shepard Fairey collaborated with DJ Shadow on a box set, with T-shirts, stickers, prints, and a mix CD by Shadow.
In 2006, Shepard Fairey joined NYC based Ad agency Project 2050 as founding Creative Director and was featured on the cover of Advertising Age magazine.
The book Supply and Demand: The Art of Shepard Fairey was released in 2006.
In June 2007, Shepard Fairey opened his one-man show entitled "E Pluribus Venom", at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery.
Shepard Fairey donated original cover art to the 2008 album Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran, produced for Iraq War documentary Body of War.
In 2008, Shepard Fairey teamed up again with Z-Trip to do a series of shows in support of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama entitled Party For Change.
Shepard Fairey was arrested on February 7,2009, on his way to the premiere of his show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts, on two outstanding warrants related to graffiti.
Shepard Fairey was charged with damage to property for having postered two Boston area locations with graffiti, a Boston Police Department spokesman said.
Shepard Fairey's arrest was announced to party goers by longtime friend Z-Trip who had been performing at the ICA premiere at Shepard Fairey's request.
In January 2015, Shepard Fairey made a cameo appearance on Portlandia.
In July 2015, Shepard Fairey was arrested and detained at Los Angeles International Airport, after passing through customs, on a warrant for allegedly vandalizing 14 buildings in Detroit.
Shepard Fairey created a series of posters supporting Barack Obama's 2008 candidacy for President of the United States, including the iconic "HOPE" portrait.
Shepard Fairey distributed 300,000 stickers and 500,000 posters during the campaign, funding his grassroots electioneering through poster and fine art sales.
In February 2008, Shepard Fairey received a letter of thanks from Obama for his contribution to the campaign.
Shepard Fairey created a similar but new image of Barack Obama for Time magazine, which was used as the cover art for the 2008 Person of the Year issue.
In October 2008, Shepard Fairey created a small edition of serigraphs entitled Obama Hope Gold.
Shepard Fairey subsequently filed suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Associated Press, seeking a declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine.
Shepard Fairey subsequently admitted that he had based the poster on the AP photograph and had fabricated and destroyed evidence to hide the fact.
The AP and Shepard Fairey settled out of court in January 2011.
Shepard Fairey created a mutt version of the red, white, and blue poster, donating it to help support pet adoptions, from an image of a rescued shaggy dog taken by photographer Clay Myers.
In 2014, Shepard Fairey painted a towering mural, 9 stories high, paying tribute to Nelson Mandela and the 25th anniversary of the Purple Rain Protest.
Shepard Fairey created an adaptation of the Obama HOPE poster for satirical Kentucky politician Honest Gil Fulbright.
Shepard Fairey made a gift of the poster to Emmanuel Macron, who hung it in his office upon assuming the presidency of France.
Shepard Fairey reacted to the act by declaring his support for all who protest against injustice and that he understood the goals of the action.
Shepard Fairey created a poster supporting Kamala Harris' 2024 candidacy for President of the United States.
In September 2010, Shepard Fairey created a poster for the ACLU with actress Olivia Wilde as the Statue of Liberty holding a megaphone and a clipboard, the ACLU's weapons of choice.
Shepard Fairey sits on the advisory board of Reaching to Embrace the Arts, a nonprofit organization that provides art supplies to disadvantaged schools and students.
In 2007, Shepard Fairey was commissioned to create a logo for "Music Is Revolution Foundation" and became a board member of the Music Is Revolution Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports music education for students in public schools.
Shepard Fairey is one of the earliest supporters of Give to Cure, a non-profit organization devoted to accelerating the process of finding cures for human diseases.
Shepard Fairey created the first Give To Cure sticker series with 20 distinct designs.
In January 2012, Shepard Fairey created an exclusive print called "The Cure" for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research.
Every year since 2009, Shepard Fairey has contributed his art to raise funds for the RUSH Philanthropic Arts Foundation.
In June 2009, Shepard Fairey created a poster in support of the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi to bring awareness to the human rights cause in Burma.
In 2009, Shepard Fairey teamed up with artist and activist Ernesto Yerena, activist Marco Amador and musician Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, to create, distribute, and sell posters countering dehumanizing and anti-immigrant rhetoric for the We Are Human Campaign.
Shepard Fairey has created artwork to benefit the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace.
In November 2009, Shepard Fairey partnered with LGBT grassroots organization FAIR to auction "Defend Equality Love Unites" posters to raise awareness and funds for the fight for gay and lesbian marriage equality.
Shepard Fairey is a supporter of artist movements such as The Art of Elysium, an organization aiming to affect social change by making art available to striving artists and young people battling serious illnesses.
In May 2010, Shepard Fairey partnered with Feeding America and The Advertising Council to create an outdoor public service advertisement to raise awareness about domestic hunger.
In 2011, Shepard Fairey was named honorary chair of the Young Literati, a philanthropic group of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.
Shepard Fairey has created artwork and curated several Young Literati Annual Toast events benefitting the Library Foundation.
In December 2011, Shepard Fairey contributed to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation's inaugural "Artist as Activist" print project to benefit the Coalition for the Homeless.
Shepard Fairey created an original print called "The Future is Unwritten" to commemorate Rauschenburg's dedication to important social issues and the mission of the Coalition for the Homeless.
In March 2014, Shepard Fairey created a portrait of Ai Weiwei with "Friends of Ai Weiwei", a group of Ai supporters who were trying to promote awareness of the artists' legal status in China where authorities had confiscated his passport.
Shepard Fairey has created works to support school safety, and posters with his art were seen at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, DC, on March 24,2018.
Shepard Fairey has been criticized for failing to obtain permission and to provide attribution for works he used.
Shepard Fairey has threatened to sue artists for the same technique.
Originally, Shepard Fairey had claimed his HOPE poster was based on a 2006 copyrighted photo of then-Senator Barack Obama seated next to actor George Clooney, taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the Associated Press, which wanted credit and compensation for the work.
Garcia believes that he personally owns the copyright for the photo, and has said, "If you put all the legal stuff away, I'm so proud of the photograph and that Shepard Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it's had".
Shepard Fairey said his use of the photograph fell within the legal definition of fair use.
In February 2009, Shepard Fairey filed a federal lawsuit against the Associated Press, seeking a declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine and so did not infringe their copyright.
At first, Shepard Fairey claimed that he used the photo of Clooney and Obama, cropped the actor out of the shot, and made other changes.
In October 2009, Shepard Fairey admitted he had tried to deceive the Court by destroying evidence that he had instead used the photograph alleged by the AP.
Shepard Fairey admitted he had used a close-up shot of Obama, taken by Mannie Garcia, as the AP had long alleged.
Shepard Fairey's lawyers announced they were no longer representing him, and Laurence Pulgram, an intellectual property lawyer, stated that the revelation put Mr Shepard Fairey's case in trouble.
Shepard Fairey was charged with destruction of property in 2015 for tagging 18 posters at unsanctioned sites.
In 2024, Shepard Fairey wrote the afterword to Iggy and The Stooges: The Authorized Biography by authorized Alice Cooper biographer Jeffrey Morgan.
Shepard Fairey cited his collaboration with Public Enemy, his funding of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and his six-figure charitable contributions for Darfur assistance as responses to charges of exploitation:.
Shepard Fairey's Obey Giant stickers and Akay's Akayism posters are clever children of Duchamp, ironic conceptual art.
Artists Mark Vallen, Lincoln Cushing, Josh MacPhee, and Favianna Rodriguez have documented that Shepard Fairey has appropriated work by Koloman Moser, Ralph Chaplin, Pirkle Jones, Rupert Garcia, Rene Mederos, Felix Beltran, and Gary Grimshaw, among others.
Sherwin questioned O'Shea's defense of Shepard Fairey, noting that Shepard Fairey is a SUPERTOUCH author and business associate of O'Shea.
Sherwin suggests that O'Shea has a "vested" interest in making sure that Shepard Fairey is viewed positively by the public since he has curated art exhibits involving Shepard Fairey and has written extensively about the artist.
Sherwin implied that O'Shea's critique of Vallen was selective because key negative facts about Shepard Fairey's history were left out in the article.
Bloggers have criticized Shepard Fairey for accepting commissions from corporations such as Saks Fifth Avenue, for which his design agency produced illustrations inspired by Constructivism and Alexander Rodchenko.
Shepard Fairey defends his corporate commissions by saying that clients such as Saks Fifth Avenue help him to keep his studio operational and his assistants employed.
Shepard Fairey has acknowledged the irony of being a street artist exploring themes of free speech while at the same time being an artist hired by corporations for consumer campaigns.
Shepard Fairey says simply that designers and artists have to make money to survive:.
Shepard Fairey believes the attack was the result of a misunderstanding over his artwork, which commemorated the demolition of the legendary Ungdomshuset at Jagtvej 69.