Gauntlet Gallery
What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Andre Psychedelic (Large Format)”?
Artist Statement
Andre Psychedelic. Serigraph on Coventry Rag, 100% Cotton Custom Archival Paper with hand-deckled edges. 30 x 41 inches. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 89. Comes with a certificate of authenticity. $900. The immediate success and proliferation of the Andre sticker compelled Fairey to develop strategies to expand the reach of his campaign and call attention to the original sticker in public space. However, he did want to alter the design, as a means to diversify the Andre sticker from the original black and white image. He began to print stickers with the same illustration and text but with animal patterns and colorful Op art backgrounds. His desire to create attention-getting color combinations resulted in extensive research into psychedelic posters from the late 1960s. Fairey was particularly drawn to the aggressive color combinations of posters made for the legendary San Francisco music venue, The Filmore. Up until the creation of "Andre Psychedelic," Shepard's dedication to the Andre sticker, and its corresponding success made him wary of incorporating Andre into other works of art. Fairey's love of psychedelic posters in general and his deep admiration for John Van Hamersveld's 1968 image of Jimmy Hendrix allowed him to insert Andre's face, taken from the original sticker, into a psychedelic design. This initial stylistic breakthrough would become a fundamental strategy throughout Fairey's artistic practice. The image would become the first fine art screenprint featuring Fairey's version of the wrestler's face. The Andre sticker, which Fairey created as a student in 1989, is the cornerstone of his 30-year practice. The artist uses a cropped image of the original sticker to reflect on three decades of evolution in his work and dramatic shifts in society. Fairey's career started with placing stickers in public space, an intentionally ambiguous statement, that over decades transformed into an overtly political, message-driven practice. Fairey inserts colors, rips, and patterns reminiscent of psychedelic imagery onto and around the iconic face. The disorienting design addresses the dramatic shift from analog forms of disseminating information to the current digital bombardment of imagery and information online. Fairey ages the iconic face by covering it with colored lines and tears, signifying years of work put in by the artist to establish himself by placing work in public space, a realm loaded with competing messages and the threat of arrest. The layers and rips are also a bod to the ephemeral nature of street art. For 30 years Fairey has placed his art in the urban landscape, which has been removed by property owners, civil servants, eroded by Mother Nature, and covered by other artists.
Summary
Andre Psychedelic (Large Format) is a 2019 Shepard Fairey serigraph on Coventry Rag 100% cotton archival paper with hand-deckled edges, 30 x 41 inches, in a signed, numbered edition of 89 with a certificate of authenticity. It inserts the Andre the Giant face from the original sticker into a psychedelic design of aggressive colors, lines, and rips. The source describes this as the first fine art screenprint featuring Fairey's version of the wrestler's face, a stylistic breakthrough born from his study of late-1960s Fillmore psychedelic posters.
Why It Matters
Andre Psychedelic is presented in the source as a pivotal origin point: the first fine art screenprint to feature Fairey's version of the Andre face, and the moment he inserted that icon into a psychedelic composition. This breakthrough, the source notes, became a fundamental strategy across his later practice, making the work historically weighty within the OBEY catalog. It grew out of Fairey's drive to diversify the original black-and-white Andre sticker, his research into late-1960s San Francisco psychedelic posters from the Fillmore, and his admiration for John Van Hamersveld's 1968 Hendrix image. Beyond its art-historical role, the print reflects on thirty years of the Andre image and the ephemeral nature of street art through colored lines and rips. For collectors, this large-format 30 x 41 inch serigraph on archival Coventry Rag, limited to 89 with a certificate of authenticity, is a documented milestone in Fairey's iconography rather than a decorative variant, giving it strong collector and historical standing.
Collector Perspective
This is a marquee piece for OBEY and Fairey collectors who want a work tied to a documented stylistic breakthrough, the first fine art screenprint of his Andre face. The 30 x 41 inch large format, archival Coventry Rag paper with hand-deckled edges, edition of 89, and certificate of authenticity make it a true anchor work for a serious collection. Its psychedelic color palette gives it bold wall presence, distinct from Fairey's more monochrome icon prints. It naturally pairs with its companion O.G. Rips and other large-format 2019 icon releases, and appeals to collectors who value art-historical narrative and the lineage from 1960s psychedelic poster art into Fairey's practice.
Historical Context
The source positions Andre Psychedelic as a foundational stylistic breakthrough: the first fine art screenprint featuring Fairey's version of the wrestler's face, and the genesis of inserting the Andre icon into psychedelic designs. It traces directly to the original 1989 student sticker, Fairey's early efforts to diversify it with animal patterns and Op art backgrounds, and his deep research into late-1960s Fillmore psychedelic posters and Van Hamersveld's 1968 Hendrix image. Released in large format in 2019 alongside O.G. Rips with which it shares text and specifications, it reflects on thirty years of the Andre image and the ephemerality of street art, anchoring a defining strategy that recurs throughout Fairey's mature OBEY iconography.
FAQ
What is Andre Psychedelic (Large Format)?
It is a 2019 Shepard Fairey serigraph that places the Andre the Giant face from the original sticker into a psychedelic design. Printed on Coventry Rag 100% cotton archival paper with hand-deckled edges at 30 x 41 inches, it is signed and numbered in an edition of 89 with a certificate of authenticity.
Why is this image significant?
The source describes it as the first fine art screenprint featuring Fairey's version of the wrestler's face. Inserting the Andre icon into a psychedelic composition was a stylistic breakthrough that became a fundamental strategy throughout his later practice.
What inspired the psychedelic style?
Fairey researched late-1960s psychedelic posters, drawn to the aggressive color combinations of works for San Francisco's Fillmore venue, and admired John Van Hamersveld's 1968 image of Jimi Hendrix, which informed this design.
How does it relate to O.G. Rips?
The two 2019 releases share the same descriptive text, paper, dimensions of 30 x 41 inches, and edition of 89, functioning as closely linked treatments of the cropped Andre face.
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.