Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey was born in Charleston, S.C. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, R.I. While at R.I.S.D. he created the “Andre the Giant has a Posse” sticker that transformed into the OBEY GIANT art campaign, with imagery that has changed the way people see art and the urban landscape. His work has evolved into an acclaimed body of art, which includes the 2008 "Hope" portrait of Barack Obama, which can be found in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Fairey’s 25-year career started in 1989 with his sticker campaign. In addition to his guerrilla street art presence, the artist has executed more than 50 large-scale painted public murals around the world as of 2015. His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and many others.
In late 2015, Fairey opened his first painting show in New York since 2010 with the Jacob Lewis Gallery. The exhibition titled “On Our Hands” was the gallery’s inaugural exhibition of the artist’s work as his representing gallery in New York. The show coincided with the artist's most recent monograph release, Covert to Overt (Rizzoli).