Mr Brainwash Happy Birthday

Mr. Brainwash is a French street Pop artist and videographer known for his large-scale installations and prints of celebrities like Madonna, Kate Moss and Marilyn Monroe. His practice of subverting cultural iconography and appropriation borrows from Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Bansky.

Fellow street artist Alec Monopoly has said that he considers Mr. Brainwash a mentor. He is perhaps best known for his role in Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), which features Mr. Brainwash’s rise to success in the street art scene. Much like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Mr. Brainwash's popularity in Pop art happened almost overnight after the premiere of the film, in which he remarks, “Banksy captured me becoming an artist. In the end, I became his biggest work of art.”

Born Thierry Guetta, Mr. Brainwash moved to Los Angeles when he was 15, where he attended high school before dropping out. The artist later ran a successful vintage clothing store in the city. His interest in street art was spurred by a visit to France in 1999, where he learned that his cousin was the famed graffiti artist Space Invader. Having developed a knack for filming, Mr. Brainwash started to record the nightly escapades of Invader and other street artists such as Shepard Fairey.

In 2013, Mr. Brainwash was included in the exhibition “Art Wars” at Saatchi Gallery in London. He has since developed an exceptional international reputation beyond hype-culture; his followers are captivated by his use of positive messages, an uplifting outlook and a retrospection of life through street and contemporary art alike, of which his global growing fan base can't get enough.

In the present day, Mr. Brainwash's international fan base of collectors has propelled his blue-chip artwork into the upper tier of desirability where he has joined the ranks of contemporary Pop art masters such as KAWS, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons.

Find a collection of original Mr. Brainwash art on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Arton Contemporary)

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.