Gauntlet Gallery
What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Biggie (Blue)”?
Artist Statement
BIGGIE BLUE Screen Print 18 x 24 inches Edition of 300
Summary
Biggie (Blue) is a 2004 Shepard Fairey screen print published by Obey Giant in an edition of 300, measuring 18 x 24 inches. Part of a two-color release available in Blue and Red, this Blue variant depicts the late hip-hop artist The Notorious B.I.G. using Fairey's flat, high-contrast portrait treatment. The print sits within Fairey's recurring series of music-figure portraits, rendering a major rap icon in the same graphic, poster-influenced vocabulary he applied across his mid-2000s Obey Giant editions. As a standard 18-by-24 screen print in an edition of 300, it reflects the accessible, widely distributed format of the period.
Why It Matters
Biggie (Blue) honors The Notorious B.I.G., one of hip-hop's most revered figures, within Fairey's ongoing project of translating music icons into emblematic graphic portraits. By rendering Biggie in the same flat, high-contrast style he used for punk and rock figures, Fairey places hip-hop squarely inside his visual canon, an act of cultural homage that resonates with the genre's massive collector base. The two-color Blue and Red release reflects his pattern of offering colorway variants, encouraging paired collecting and giving each subject two distinct visual registers. At an edition of 300 in the standard 18-by-24 format, the print kept Fairey's portraiture of a beloved, posthumously celebrated artist accessible. For collectors, Biggie carries exceptional cultural weight, and a Fairey portrait of him bridges fine-art print collecting with deep hip-hop fandom. It appears to align with Fairey's broader use of portraiture to memorialize and elevate countercultural and music figures, treating them with iconographic seriousness. Its significance rests on that crossover resonance and on Biggie's enduring stature, which gives the image a memorial dimension beyond its graphic appeal.
Collector Perspective
This print is a magnet for collectors who span fine-art prints and hip-hop culture, especially fans honoring The Notorious B.I.G. The Blue and Red variants invite paired acquisition, and many collectors pursue both colorways of a single subject. At 18 x 24 inches in an edition of 300, it frames easily and anchors a grouping of Fairey music portraits. Its place in the 2004 Obey Giant run makes it a natural fit for collections built around music, portraiture, or that specific year. Display impact is strongest alongside other Fairey musician prints, where the uniform portrait treatment unites diverse figures into a coherent pantheon, and Biggie's stature gives the wall an emotional and cultural anchor.
Historical Context
Biggie (Blue) dates to 2004 and belongs to Fairey's series of music-figure portraits produced under Obey Giant during his Posters and Propaganda phase. Across the early-to-mid 2000s, Fairey repeatedly rendered musicians in his flat, high-contrast graphic style, building a recurring visual pantheon that spanned punk, rock, and hip-hop. This portrait of The Notorious B.I.G., who died in 1997, adds a memorial dimension to that pattern. The era follows Fairey's foundational street-art period, rooted in the late-1980s Andre the Giant campaign, and precedes his 2008 national breakthrough. Within his arc, the print documents how he extended his iconographic portrait language to honor hip-hop figures alongside his political and brand-driven output.
FAQ
Who does this print depict?
The print depicts The Notorious B.I.G., known as Biggie, rendered in Fairey's flat, high-contrast portrait style. It is part of his run of music-figure portraits and falls under his Collaborations and pop culture themed output from 2004, published by Obey Giant.
What color variants were released?
The source lists Blue and Red variants. This is the Blue version. Offering multiple colorways of a single subject was a recurring practice for Fairey, giving collectors a choice between distinct visual registers and encouraging paired collecting of both editions.
What are the size and edition?
It is an 18 x 24 inch screen print in an edition of 300, published by Obey Giant. That standard format and edition size match Fairey's mid-2000s music portraits and kept the work accessible to a broad audience of art and music collectors.
What medium is it?
The work is a screen print, the technique Fairey used for the bulk of his Obey Giant editions in this period. Screen printing produces the flat color fields and bold graphic contrast that define his iconographic portrait style.
Related Works
About the Artist
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970, Charleston, South Carolina) is an American street artist, graphic designer, and activist, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His 1989 “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker grew into the global OBEY GIANT campaign — an ongoing experiment in propaganda, obedience, and visual culture. He reached worldwide recognition with the 2008 “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama, now held by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Across screen prints, stencils, murals, and collage, Fairey channels propaganda aesthetics toward themes of peace, justice, environmentalism, and civil rights. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and LACMA.