What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “50's Guy”?

Artist Statement

Screen Print 18 x 24 inches Edition of 100

Summary

50's Guy is a 1997 screen print by Shepard Fairey, published by Obey Giant in a First Edition of 100, measuring 18 x 24 inches on paper. The record files it under collaborations/pop culture with no secondary theme, and the source provides no title-line description beyond medium, dimensions, and edition size. As a 1997 Obey Giant edition, it belongs to Fairey's early studio output of bold graphic prints drawing on mid-century American imagery. The enrichment stays close to these documented facts given the sparse source.

Why It Matters

50's Guy belongs to Fairey's prolific 1997 run of Obey Giant screen prints, and its title points to the mid-century Americana imagery that recurs across his early appropriation work. The record's pop-culture classification situates it among prints that recoded familiar commercial and period visuals through the OBEY system, a method central to how Fairey trained viewers to notice the persuasion built into everyday imagery. With an edition of 100, it is a limited early piece whose scarcity follows from the print run rather than from its age. For collectors tracing Fairey's development, the 1997-1998 figure prints, including the Cop, Stalin, and Tank works in its related set, form a coherent early body that rehearsed the visual strategies of his later output. Because the source carries essentially no descriptive text, interpretation should stay cautious; the firmly grounded facts are the 1997 date, the screen-print medium, the 18 x 24 format, and the edition of 100. Its significance is best framed collectively as part of this early cohort, with appeal driven by the small edition and its fit in a chronological OBEY collection.

Collector Perspective

50's Guy suits collectors completing Fairey's 1997 Obey Giant editions and those drawn to his use of mid-century American imagery. With an edition of 100 it is a relatively scarce early piece, and it groups naturally with the figure and pop-culture prints of the same period. The 18 x 24 format frames and displays easily alongside other late-1990s OBEY work. Because the source offers no visual description, the date and the small edition are the dependable points to emphasize. It fits a chronological collection focused on Fairey's early appropriation prints and pairs well with its 1997-1998 contemporaries.

Historical Context

Published by Obey Giant in 1997 in an edition of 100, 50's Guy sits in Fairey's early studio-edition era, a prolific period of screen-print production that established the OBEY visual vocabulary. Its title points to mid-century Americana imagery, aligning it with Fairey's broader practice of appropriating period commercial visuals. It belongs to the same late-1990s cluster as the Che, Stalin, Tank, and Cop prints in its related set, a body of work in which he iterated on borrowed figures. As a small-edition early piece, it documents the formative period of the project rather than a later, more overtly political phase.

FAQ

Related Works

Che1997 · Same 1997 early Obey Giant cohort in the collaborations/pop-culture group.

Tank1997 · Contemporary 1997 Obey Giant screen print from the same production wave.

Stalin Cabinet1997 · 1997 figure print from the same early appropriation series.

Cop1998 · Adjacent late-1990s figure print in the same pop-culture group.

Cop 2 (First Edition)1998 · Companion late-1990s figure print continuing the early cohort.

Zeppelin1997 · 1997 Obey Giant pop-culture print contemporary with this one.