The graffiti artist who rocketed to fame with an iconic portrait of President Obama was released yesterday after spending a night in jail when he ran afoul of Hub cops unimpressed by his media blitz.

Frank Shepard Fairey, 38, of Los Angeles was arrested Friday night for tagging a Massachusetts Turnpike building, police said.

“Given his popularity, the suspect, prior to his exhibit, was interviewed by various media outlets in Boston and on a nationwide scale,” a police report states. “In several of these interviews, suspect spoke openly about illegally tagging. Suspect further acknowledged or admitted to recent tagging in Boston.”

[...]the Institute of Contemporary Art - has stoked his counter cultural image while making the media rounds, noting he has been arrested more than a dozen times.