Artist: Shepard Fairey
Title: Barack Obama TIME Magazine Person of the Year 2008
Year created: 2008
Medium: Fine Color Print on Paper
Edition: Limited Edition/Out of Print, Signed by the Artist
Height (inches): 28-3/4
Width (inches): 24-3/4
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
This piece is framed.
Description of piece:
Shepard Fairey, creator of the striking and influential Obama HOPE poster disseminated during the 2008 Presidential campaign, was commissioned by TIME Magazine to create its historic Person of the Year 2008 magazine cover, which featured Barack Obama.
This iconic, original oversized print from Shepard Fairey reproduces Shepard’s TIME Magazine Person of the Year 2008 Barack Obama cover art. Hand-signed by Fairey, in a large bold signature in blue felt-tip, lower right.
The artwork is richly colored, with scarlet red, delft blues, black, ivory and white. The work is resplendent with hidden details. Looking closely at the colored fields reveals graphic images rendered in an almost damask style— images of maps, flying flags, the Capitol building, bold headlines, and the military. Fairey has created art within the art.
This powerful and historic piece comes framed in a dramatic gold frame with multi-layers of custom matting. First, the wide gold frame with outer layer of white matting, with an inner matching golden fillet. Next are three additional layers of mattting in blue and scarlet, perfectly selected to complement the coloration of Fairey’s artwork. Framed size measures 28-3/4” in height x 24-3/4” width.
Shepard Fairey’s signature has been examined and authenticated by James Spence Authentication (JSA), and the work bears a unique alphanumeric authenticating label from JSA, which corresponds to the certificate of authenticity which accompanies the item.
Artist bio:
SHEPARD FAIREY, contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist and illustrator, became widely known during the 2008 U.S. presidential election for his Barack Obama “HOPE” poster. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston has described him as one of the best known and most influential street artists. His 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, D.C., the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Known for his “bold iconic style that is based on styling and idealizing images”, Fairey created a series of posters supporting Barack Obama’s 2008 candidacy for President of the United States, including the iconic “HOPE” portrait. The New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl called the poster “the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’”. Fairey also created an exclusive design for Rock the Vote.
Fairey has stated that the original version featured the word “PROGRESS” instead of the word “HOPE”, and that within weeks of its release, the campaign requested that he issue a new version, keeping the powerful image of Obama’s face but captioning it with the word “HOPE”. The campaign openly embraced the revised poster along with two additional Fairey posters that featured the words “CHANGE” and “VOTE”. In February 2008, Fairey received a letter of thanks from Obama for his contribution to the campaign.
Fairey created a similar but new image of Barack Obama for TIME Magazine, which was used as the cover art for the Person of the Year 2008 issue.
Shepard Fairey’s influence throughout the presidential election was a factor in the artist himself having been named a Person of the Year for 2008 by GQ.