Collection: Obey - Frank Shepard Fairey

(Charleston 1970)

Born in South Carolina, passionate about skateboarding and drawing, Shepard grew up listening to punk-rock music, looking at the covers of historic groups like the Sex Pistols and being “inspired” by the graphics of brands like Santa Cruz or Powell-Peralta. In 1989, while still a student at the Rhodes Island School of Design, he plastered the city of Providence with over a million stickers depicting the face of French wrestler André the Giant, but it was after seeing graffiti in New York that, as he himself says, he understood he wanted to bring art to the streets.
Obey's creative inspiration comes from the fusion of his background with a passion for early twentieth-century Soviet graphics. His artistic production combines different languages, from graphics to photography, through collage and illustration, however the ideal place to express his freedom of expression, as an artist and as a man, remain the walls.
Shepard has never been afraid to link his image to social and political issues: he supported Obama's campaign with the famous "Hope" poster, he has taken a stand against every war and with the sale of his works he supports various organizations that fight to reduce the climate crisis.
He has created hundreds of drawings on the walls of cities around the world. His works are exhibited in the collections of some famous museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the MoMA in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.