Shepard Fairey x Ted Soqui — Eyes on the King Verdict

Shepard Fairey Eyes on the King Verdict 2022 Signed Ted Soqui 18x24 Obey Print

Description

SHEPARD FAIREY x TED SOQUI — “EYES ON THE KING VERDICT”
Signed Limited Edition Screen Print | 18 x 24 Inches | Edition of 600

A visually powerful and historically grounded collaboration between Shepard Fairey and Los Angeles photojournalist Ted Soqui, Eyes on the King Verdict revisits one of the defining moments in modern American social history: the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King verdict and the Los Angeles uprising that followed.

The composition is immediately arresting. A monumental female figure dominates the foreground, rendered in Fairey’s unmistakable graphic vocabulary of saturated red, black, gold, and muted blue. Her gaze is calm but direct, carrying a sense of both dignity and vigilance. Around her, layered newspaper headlines, architectural fragments, archival imagery and references to Rodney King situate the portrait inside a broader visual record of Los Angeles at a moment of extraordinary tension.

The work is based on photography by Ted Soqui, who documented the 1992 unrest firsthand while working as a photojournalist in Los Angeles. Fairey translated that documentary source material into a layered screenprint that bridges journalism, street art, propaganda graphics and contemporary history.

Fairey described the work in the context of what happens when people repeatedly feel failed by institutions, arguing that protest becomes a legitimate response when systems stop serving the public. Soqui has likewise reflected on the striking parallels between what he photographed in 1992 and the demonstrations he later documented following the killing of George Floyd.

That history gives the print unusual depth. This is not simply decorative street art. It is a work about memory, protest, institutional failure, racial justice and the cyclical nature of social unrest in America.

Visual Presence

This piece is especially effective in a modern office, study, entryway or contemporary living space.

The portrait has enough visual force to command a room without becoming chaotic. The muted turquoise background tempers the intense red and black figure, while the circular Rodney King element and newspaper typography provide layers that reveal themselves gradually as the viewer spends time with the work.

From across a room, it reads as a bold portrait.

Up close, it becomes an archive.

That combination is one reason Fairey’s strongest politically driven works translate so well into interior spaces: they have immediate visual impact at distance and intellectual detail at close range.

Edition Details

• Artist: Shepard Fairey
• Collaboration: Ted Soqui
• Title: Eyes on the King Verdict
• Medium: Screen print
• Size: 18 x 24 inches
• Paper: Thick cream Speckletone paper
• Edition: 600
• Signatures: Signed by Shepard Fairey and Ted Soqui
• Year: 2022
• Original source: Photograph by Ted Soqui
• Publisher: OBEY Giant
• Status: Sold out from the original release

The official OBEY release confirms the edition of 600 and the dual signatures of Fairey and Soqui. A portion of the original proceeds benefited the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

Why Collectors Care

What makes this print especially compelling is the convergence of street art and documentary history.

Fairey is one of the most influential graphic artists to emerge from the street-art movement, while Soqui’s photographs carry direct historical provenance from the events being referenced. Their signatures together transform the piece from a conventional Fairey edition into a collaboration connecting art with eyewitness documentation.

The subject also places the work within a long lineage of political printmaking—from protest posters and WPA graphics to punk ephemera and contemporary activist art.

For collectors building around Shepard Fairey, political art, Los Angeles history, civil-rights imagery or contemporary street art, this is a particularly substantive piece.

ABOUT GAUNTLET GALLERY
Gauntlet Gallery specializes in authenticated and carefully researched street art, contemporary art, music collectibles and culturally significant editions. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, the gallery focuses on provenance, transparency and collector education.

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