Shepard Fairey / OBEY Giant
“Let Fury Have the Hour” — Joe Strummer / The Clash
Dual-Signed Screen Print • Edition of 450 • 2010

18″ × 24″ • Screen Print
Hand-Signed and Numbered in Pencil by Both Shepard Fairey and Antonino D’Ambrosio
Reference Photograph by Syd Shelton • Released with “Let Fury Have a Heartbeat” Exhibition at Subliminal Projects

What You Are Getting

This is “Let Fury Have the Hour Print” — an 18″ × 24″ screen print by Shepard Fairey, based on a reference photograph by Syd Shelton of Joe Strummer, frontman of The Clash. The image depicts Strummer posing with an upside-down guitar — the defiant, physical stance of a musician whose instrument was as much weapon as accompaniment.

Hand-signed and numbered in pencil by both Shepard Fairey and author/director Antonino D’Ambrosio. Edition of 450. Released Thursday, January 7, 2010 at a random time via the Obey Giant store. $50 retail, limit 1 per household. Sold out. Unframed.

Print Details

The Book, the Film, the Print

This print was created as part of a larger project by Antonino D’Ambrosio — author, filmmaker, and founder of the La Lutta New Media Collective. D’Ambrosio first published Let Fury Have the Hour: The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer as a book in 2004 (Nation Books), collecting essays, interviews, and original writing about Strummer’s life as both musician and activist. Contributors included Shepard Fairey, Chuck D, Billy Bragg, Tom Morello, DJ Spooky, Greil Marcus, and Lester Bangs, among others.

D’Ambrosio then developed the book into a documentary film of the same name, using The Clash’s legacy as a framework to examine creative activism worldwide — artists, musicians, and citizens using culture to address poverty, racism, environmental devastation, and war. Fairey created this print artwork for the documentary, releasing it to coincide with the “Let Fury Have a Heartbeat” exhibition at his own Subliminal Projects gallery in Los Angeles in early January 2010.

The title comes from Joe Strummer’s core conviction: that art should not be passive, that rage channeled through creativity becomes a force for justice. D’Ambrosio coined the term “creative response” to describe what Strummer practiced — the idea that when confronted with injustice, the act of making something — a song, a poster, a film, a protest — is itself a political act. That philosophy connects directly to what Fairey has built through the OBEY project.

Syd Shelton: The Photographer

The reference photograph is by Syd Shelton — the British photographer and activist who became the de facto visual chronicler of Rock Against Racism (RAR), the movement that confronted racist ideology through music and street action across Britain from 1976 to 1981.

Shelton photographed The Clash, Elvis Costello, Misty in Roots, Tom Robinson, The Au Pairs, and The Specials at RAR gigs and carnivals throughout England. He captured the history-making RAR Carnival 1 at Victoria Park, London on April 30, 1978 — when nearly 100,000 people marched from Trafalgar Square to hear The Clash, Steel Pulse, X-Ray Spex, and the Tom Robinson Band. His photograph of Paul Simonon of The Clash at Victoria Park — legs spread, bass swinging — is one of the most iconic punk photographs ever taken. Shelton has produced the largest collection of images documenting the RAR movement. His work has been exhibited at Autograph ABP (London, 2015) and published in the book Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism.

The choice of a Shelton photograph for this print was not incidental. Rock Against Racism was the movement where punk met racial justice — where The Clash staged concerts alongside reggae bands specifically to counter the National Front’s rise. The photographer who documented that movement providing the source image for a Shepard Fairey print about creative activism connects the OBEY project directly to its punk-era roots in street-level political art.

Joe Strummer and Shepard Fairey

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) died at age fifty from a previously undiagnosed heart condition on December 22, 2002. As frontman and co-songwriter of The Clash, he helped transform punk rock from nihilistic provocation into a vehicle for social justice. The Clash played the first RAR Carnival. They supported the H-Block hunger strikers. They took Jamaican reggae, New York hip-hop, and Afrobeat and fused them into their records at a time when punk was almost exclusively white. The band was nicknamed “The Only Band That Matters” — not for musical ego, but because they insisted that music should matter beyond entertainment.

Fairey has consistently cited The Clash and punk rock as foundational to the OBEY project. The Sex Pistols gave him the image (he discovered them in 1984, at 14, and immediately made a homemade Sid Vicious t-shirt). The Clash gave him the politics — the conviction that graphic provocation should serve something beyond itself. This print sits at the intersection of those two influences, with a Strummer portrait channeled through Fairey’s propaganda-graphic language and signed by the author who documented Strummer’s legacy as creative activist.

The Complete “Let Fury” Print Editions

Fairey and D’Ambrosio released three print editions across the project’s timeline:

All three editions dual-signed by Fairey and D’Ambrosio. The 2010 screen print (this listing) is the original release — created for the documentary and exhibition three years before the book and film poster editions followed. The 2013 book poster is a lithograph (not screen print) and includes D’Ambrosio’s “For, Not Against” essay on the verso. A portion of proceeds from the 2013 film poster went to La Lutta Creative Response Think Tank.

What Is Included

• “Let Fury Have the Hour Print” screen print — 18″ × 24″
• Dual-signed and numbered in pencil by both Shepard Fairey and Antonino D’Ambrosio

Shipping

Ships flat with protective materials in a sturdy mailer. Tracking included, fully insured. International buyers welcome — customs fees may apply upon delivery.

Questions? Message us anytime — happy to provide additional photos or details.