Shepard Fairey — Sinking Liberty (2017)
The Statue of Liberty, up to her shoulders in rising water.
The most recognizable emblem of freedom, going under.
Sinking Liberty is one of Fairey's starkest warnings — an image that reads as climate alarm and civic warning at once. This example is a hand-signed and numbered print from an edition of 400, produced in 2017 on cream Speckletone paper. This is the full story of the work: what it depicts, why it works on two registers, how it reached the market, and what to know before you buy.
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What you are actually looking at
Sinking Liberty shows the Statue of Liberty submerged to her shoulders in rising water — a stark visual warning that fuses environmental alarm with a broader anxiety about the erosion of democratic ideals. Fairey has returned repeatedly to Lady Liberty as a symbol, and here he strips away any triumphalism, presenting the nation's most recognizable emblem of freedom as vulnerable and going under.
The power of the image is in its economy. One recognizable figure, one clear physical fact — the water is rising, she is disappearing into it — and the whole argument lands before you've read a word. That's the poster idiom working exactly as intended.
An image that works on two registers
What lifts Sinking Liberty above a single-note protest print is that it argues two things at once.
Read literally, it is a climate-change statement — about coastlines, sea-level rise, and consequence. The rising water is real water, and the warning is environmental. Read figuratively, it is about liberty itself losing ground — democratic ideals eroding, the emblem of freedom overwhelmed by forces around it. The same image carries both readings without choosing between them.
That doubling is characteristic of Fairey's best work, where a single arresting image carries multiple lines of argument in his familiar high-contrast poster idiom. The viewer supplies whichever reading they arrive with — and often both. It's what gives the print staying power: it isn't tied to one headline, because it's about a pattern, not a single event.
Lady Liberty in Fairey's catalogue
Fairey has returned to the Statue of Liberty more than once, and understanding that recurrence sharpens what Sinking Liberty is doing.
Liberty is one of the most loaded symbols in American iconography — usually deployed as triumph, aspiration, welcome. Fairey's instinct is to complicate exactly those settled symbols, to take the emblem everyone reads one way and pressure it into a harder question. In Sinking Liberty he removes the triumph entirely. The statue that usually stands for arrival and possibility is instead shown drowning. That reversal — a national emblem depicted as endangered rather than eternal — is the whole charge of the image, and it's consistent with how Fairey treats loaded symbols across his practice.
Shepard Fairey, in one paragraph
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970) is one of the most influential American artists of his generation. He emerged from the 1990s skateboarding and street-art scene with his OBEY Giant campaign — an experiment in propaganda and public space that grew into a global visual language. In 2008 his Barack Obama "Hope" portrait became one of the most recognizable political images in modern history. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, LACMA, and the Smithsonian. Editions release through his OBEY studio and routinely sell out and trade on the secondary market.
The edition and how it reached the market
This is a 2017 print on cream Speckletone paper, hand-signed and numbered in pencil by Shepard Fairey out of an edition of 400. The Speckletone stock gives the high-contrast image a warm, tactile ground characteristic of Fairey's studio editions.
For due diligence: the specific dimensions aren't stated in the product data for this example, so we won't assert a size. What defines this sheet is documented and plain — a 2017 signed and numbered print out of 400. If exact dimensions matter to your decision, confirm them against the specific example.
Authentication: what actually backs a Fairey
Read this carefully, because it's the point collectors most often get wrong.
Shepard Fairey does not issue an artist certificate of authenticity, and there is no third-party authentication board for his work — no Fairey equivalent of Banksy's Pest Control. That is how the entire Fairey market operates.
Authenticity for a signed Fairey rests on the pencil signature and numbering (here, numbered out of 400), the physical characteristics of the edition (the Speckletone stock, the print process), and provenance. This release is documented in the Gauntlet Gallery Shepard Fairey reference archive, part of that provenance. Be skeptical of any "third-party authentication" claim or a certificate implying an official board signed off — no such board exists for his prints.
Condition: what to check, and why photographs matter
Condition drives value on paper works. This example is described as Very Good. For a print on Speckletone, the things worth examining are the brightness of the stock, the crispness of the image, any handling creases or corner dings, and whether the sheet has ever been trimmed or light-exposed.
Because condition is specific to the individual sheet, the listing photographs form part of the condition description, not decoration. The images show the actual piece you will receive; we never assert a grade beyond what they support.
What the market says
Specific comparable market data for this exact image wasn't compiled for this piece, so we won't put a number on it — that's the honest position rather than an invented figure.
What we can say directionally: Fairey's signed, numbered studio editions on Speckletone trade actively on the secondary market, and a numbered edition of 400 is a defined, moderate run for his output. Value on any specific example depends on condition, edition position, documentation, and sales venue, and any secondary-market figure would be directional rather than an appraisal. If precise comparables matter to your decision, treat current listings and recent sales for this specific image as the reference point, and remember that market data ages.
Who this piece is for
A few kinds of collector tend to want this print. The Fairey collector assembling his political and civic work, and specifically his recurring Lady Liberty imagery. The message-first buyer who responds to a plain, strong statement about climate and democracy. And the issue-minded collector for whom the environmental and civic reading carries personal weight.
If you're none of those and simply find the image arresting, that's a valid reason too.
Frequently asked questions
Is it signed and numbered? Yes — hand-signed and numbered in pencil by Shepard Fairey, out of an edition of 400.
What is the medium? A print on cream Speckletone paper, from 2017.
What does the image mean? It works on two registers at once — a literal climate-change warning about rising water, and a figurative statement about liberty and democratic ideals losing ground.
What size is it? The specific dimensions aren't stated in the available data for this example; confirm the size against the specific piece if that detail drives your decision.
Does it come with a certificate? Fairey issues no artist COA and there is no third-party board for his prints. Authenticity rests on the signature, the numbering, the documented characteristics, and provenance.
What condition is it in? Graded Very Good. The photographs form part of the condition description and show the actual piece you will receive.
The bottom line
Sinking Liberty is Fairey at his most economical and most double-edged: one recognizable emblem, going under, carrying both a climate warning and a civic one in the same image. As a signed, numbered 2017 print out of 400 on Speckletone, it sits squarely in his recurring Lady Liberty lane and his strongest political work.
If it's the piece for you, the individual sheet — its number, its condition, its documentation — is where the decision lives.
