“I wanted strong. I wanted wise, but not intimidating,” Shepard Fairey said of his iconic poster design for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Set in Fairey’s signature graphic style with a patriotic palette of red, white, and blue, the portrait portrays Obama looking into the distance with a sense of hopeful determination. The street artist based this expression on a photograph of the candidate, taken by Mannie Garcia two years prior, that he discovered through a Google Image Search. Fairey is said to have completed the poster design in a single day, and he began selling the posters on the street himself before Super Tuesday. The image quickly went viral and became inseparable from the campaign, featured on t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, and more.
Dimensions: 36 x 24 Inches / 91.4 x 61 Centimeters
Medium: Offset lithograph on cream fine art paper.
Provenance: Comes with gallery certificate of authenticity. Includes original matching (2008) 'Hope' sticker (see photos)
Edition: Limited Edition of Unknown Quantity
Year: 2008
Condition: Very Good (some edgewear on lower left corner - see photos)
ABOUT THE ART
The Barack Obama 'Hope' poster is an image of Barack Obama designed by artist Shepard Fairey, which was widely described as iconic and came to represent his 2008 presidential campaign. It consists of a stylized stencil portrait of Obama in solid red, beige and (light and dark) blue, with the word "progress", "hope" or "change" below (and other words in some versions).
The design was created in one day and printed first as a poster. Fairey sold 290 of the posters on the street immediately after printing them. It was then more widely distributed—both as a digital image and other paraphernalia—during the 2008 election season, initially independently but with the approval of the official Obama campaign.
The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign. This led The Guardian's Laura Barton to proclaim that the image "acquired the kind of instant recognition of Jim Fitzpatrick's Che Guevara poster, and is surely set to grace T-shirts, coffee mugs and the walls of student bedrooms in the years to come."
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama "Hope" poster.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's 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, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
