1970
Shepard Fairey was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 15.
1984
For his fourteenth birthday, Shepard Fairey received his first skateboard from his parents, and with it the chance to become part of the skate punk scene, a culture that has profoundly influenced the artist's vision. His first stencils for skateboards and T-shirts date from this period.
1989
Shepard Fairey first created the André The Giant Has a Posse sticker. Originally an innocuous tool to train a friend, the sticker with the French wrestler's face transformed over time into the OBEY GIANT campaign and became an icon for the artist himself.
The success of the campaign made Obey realise the power of images.
1992
He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design as B.A., founded a small printing shop called Alternate Graphics in Providence, Rhode Island, where in 1992 - 1994 the artist worked on his own projects in graphic design and studied serigraphy.
2003
Working with his wife Amanda Fairey, he founded a private creative agency Studio Number One which carry out the artist’s ideas, bringing together art and commercial industries..
2008
Shepard Fairey, artist and activist, decided to make his own contribution to the 2008 presidential election.
He created the HOPE work, a portrait of Barack Obama that Obey's style turned into a symbol of democracy and change.
This initiative has made Obey one of the most influential and recognised street artists in the world.
2015
On the occasion of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, Shepard Fairey was chosen to be the first artist ever to install a three-dimensional work on the Eiffel Tower: Earth Crisis Globe.
2017
Shepard Fairey (OBEY) creates the We The People campaign in response to the growing climate of intolerance in the United States. Three portraits of women, one African American, one Latino and one Muslim remind us that there is one humanity and many ways of being American. His works became posters during the Women's Marches and the many other protests for a more inclusive State.
2018
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art dedicated a large solo exhibition to Shepard Fairey, which included almost four hundred works. Entitled Force Majeure, it was Fairey’s first solo show in Russia, and for this reason it was particularly important and evocative for his career.
2019
Shepard Fairey’s career reached 30 years and for the occasion the artist organized a traveling exhibition worldwide: Facing the Giant: Three decades of dissent, a reflection
his career aimed at highlighting both the continuity and the evolution of his art and the concepts expressed through it.
2024
His first solo exhibition in Italy opens at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan. OBEY: The Art of Shepard Fairey is a tribute to Obey's 35-year career and an immersive voyage of discovery into his artistic universe.
Shepard Fairey has so far created over 130 murals on six continents, in Europe and other countries including Canada, the United States, Russia, South Africa and Hong Kong.
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