Spirit Of Apollo by Shepard Fairey: Collector Guide, Value & What to Know

The Spirit Of Apollo screen print by Shepard Fairey is a striking addition to the artist's ongoing engagement with American iconography, space exploration, and the mythology of human achievement. Rooted in Fairey's signature OBEY Giant propaganda-poster aesthetic, this work channels the audacious optimism of the Apollo program — the most ambitious feat of exploration in history — through a bold graphic lens that resonates equally with street art collectors and space-history enthusiasts. Is the Shepard Fairey Spirit Of Apollo print worth buying? For collectors who value culturally resonant imagery, museum-quality production, and an artist at the center of the contemporary street art canon, the answer is a clear yes.

About Spirit Of Apollo

The Apollo program — NASA's moonshot initiative from 1961 to 1972 — remains the defining chapter of human exploration. At its peak it consumed roughly 4% of the entire US federal budget and employed over 400,000 engineers, scientists, and technicians. Apollo 11's lunar landing on July 20, 1969 was watched by an estimated 600 million people worldwide, making it the most-witnessed event in television history at the time. The program embodied a particular brand of American confidence: the conviction that collective will, scientific rigor, and sheer audacity could conquer the impossible. That ethos — aspirational, monumental, slightly defiant — maps naturally onto Shepard Fairey's visual vocabulary.

Fairey has long drawn on NASA imagery and astronaut iconography as source material, recognizing in space exploration the same tension between institutional power and individual heroism that animates much of his broader practice. The Apollo missions also carry a bittersweet cultural weight: they represent a ceiling humanity reached and then pulled back from. For contemporary audiences — particularly amid renewed interest in commercial spaceflight and lunar return programs — the Apollo era functions as both historical touchstone and unrealized promise. Fairey's Spirit Of Apollo taps into that nostalgia while reframing it through the artist's characteristic graphic boldness, making the print relevant to collectors across generational and cultural lines.

The Print — What You Are Getting

Spirit Of Apollo is an original hand-pulled screen print produced by the OBEY Giant studio, Fairey's Los Angeles-based fine art operation. Standard Fairey screen prints in this format measure 18 x 24 inches — the classic OBEY poster dimension that has become a recognizable format in the street art market. The visual style is unmistakable: flat fields of saturated color, bold linework, and a composition that borrows the rhetorical authority of Cold War-era propaganda posters while subverting it toward Fairey's own iconographic ends. Expect rich layered inks — often two to four colors depending on the specific variant — on heavy archival paper stock designed for long-term display and preservation.

Edition sizes for standard Fairey screen prints typically run between 150 and 450 signed and numbered copies, with occasional artist's proofs and variants in separate smaller editions. Each impression in the numbered edition is hand-signed in pencil by Fairey in the lower right corner and carries a hand-written edition number (e.g., 87/300). The OBEY blind-deboss seal — a raised impression pressed directly into the paper — appears on every authentic studio print. Production is handled entirely in-house at the OBEY Giant studio, ensuring consistent quality across the edition. Prints of this type are made to gallery and museum standards and are suitable for framing without matting loss.

Authentication and Provenance

Authenticating a Shepard Fairey OBEY Giant screen print requires verifying three studio-standard elements. First, the pencil signature in the lower right — Fairey signs each impression by hand, so the signature should show the natural variation of graphite, not print reproduction. Second, the hand-written edition number in pencil (format: XX/YYY) appears adjacent to the signature; both should be in the same hand and consistent with the total edition size documented at release. Third, the OBEY blind-deboss seal is pressed into the paper substrate itself — run a finger across the lower margin to feel the raised impression. All three elements together constitute the studio's standard provenance documentation.

No third-party certificate of authenticity is required for OBEY Giant prints, and none is recognized by the studio as authoritative. Buyers should be cautious of prints offered with third-party COAs as a substitute for — rather than a supplement to — the studio's own marks. When purchasing from an established gallery like Gauntlet Gallery, provenance is verified prior to sale. For works acquired on the secondary market, request clear photographs of the signature, edition number, and deboss before committing to a purchase. Learn more about Fairey authentication standards in our Shepard Fairey Collector Guide.

Value in Context

Spirit Of Apollo occupies a particularly strong position within the Fairey market because it carries dual-audience appeal. Space-exploration iconography attracts not only street art and contemporary print collectors but also the robust community of space-history enthusiasts and NASA memorabilia collectors — a crossover dynamic that consistently supports premiums on the secondary market. Fairey's music-related works (Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash) demonstrate this effect clearly: prints where the subject has an independent collector base of its own trade at a premium versus single-audience works.

Within the broader Fairey pricing landscape, standard signed-and-numbered screen prints in editions of 150–450 have sold across a wide range depending on subject resonance, condition, and market timing. Cultural anchor subjects — those tied to events, figures, or ideas with enduring popular recognition — tend to appreciate more consistently than niche or topical works. Apollo fits squarely in the anchor category. For current pricing on this specific print, contact Gauntlet Gallery directly. We price all works transparently and can provide condition reports, provenance documentation, and comparables on request.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Shepard Fairey Spirit Of Apollo print authentic?
Authentication is established through OBEY Giant studio documentation: a pencil signature lower right, a hand-written edition number in the format XX/YYY, and the OBEY blind-deboss seal pressed into the paper. All three elements should be present. No third-party COA is required or recognized by the studio as authoritative. Gauntlet Gallery verifies all three marks before offering any Fairey print for sale.

What is the Shepard Fairey Spirit Of Apollo print worth?
Fairey prints with space-exploration iconography occupy a cross-collector niche appealing to both street art and space-history audiences. Comparable Fairey screen prints have traded in the $200–$1,200+ range on the secondary market depending on condition, edition size, and timing. Works with dual-audience subjects tend to appreciate at the higher end. Contact Gauntlet Gallery for current pricing on this specific work.

Where can I buy the Shepard Fairey Spirit Of Apollo print?
Gauntlet Gallery carries authenticated Shepard Fairey works including Spirit Of Apollo. Browse the full Shepard Fairey collection at Gauntlet Gallery or contact us directly for pricing and availability on this specific print.

Ready to add this work to your collection? Browse all Shepard Fairey prints at Gauntlet Gallery — every piece verified, documented, and ready to ship.