KAWSKAWS - Small Lie - Brown Version 2017
2017
About the Item
KAWS
In the beginning, Brian Donnelly was just a kid from Jersey City, New Jersey, who got into the graffiti thing. KAWS was his tag, chosen simply because he liked the way it looked. Today, KAWS creates all kinds of art — there are KAWS figures and toys, sculptures and colorful drawings, paintings and prints that appropriate pop phenomena like the Smurfs, the Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.
In the late 1990s, the artist, a 1996 graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, was making a living as an illustrator for the animation studio Jumbo Pictures. Like young Hansel and Gretel with their trail of crumbs, KAWS would mark the morning route to his downtown Manhattan office with “subvertising,” “interrupting” fashion advertisements by adding his colorful character Bendy, its sinuous length sliding playfully around the likes of a Calvin Klein perfume bottle or supermodel Christy Turlington.
These creations gained a following, to the point where work posted in the morning would disappear by lunchtime. Even in those early days, KAWS was hot on the resale market.
“When I was doing graffiti,” he once explained, “it meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn’t reaching people.”
Instead of seeking entrée to the elite New York art world (which, frankly, wasn’t looking for a street artist anyway), KAWS moved to Japan, where a flourishing youth culture welcomed visionaries like him.
In 1999, he partnered with Bounty Hunter, a Japanese toy and streetwear brand, to release his first toy. Companion — an eight-inch-tall vinyl reimagining of Mickey Mouse, with a skull-and-crossbones head and trademark XX eyes — debuted with a limited run of 500. It sold out quickly.
Companion was the first of more than 130 toy designs, which came to include such characters as Chum, Blitz, Be@rbrick, BFF and Milo, each immediately recognizable as KAWS figures by their XX eyes. Fans have proved insatiable. In 2017, MoMA’s online store announced the availability of a limited supply of KAWS Companion figures; as avid collectors logged on to stake their claim, the website crashed — multiple times.
Companion is the most visible of the KAWS posse, appearing over the past decade in new postures and combinations in monumental KAWS statues and other works. These include Along the Way (2013), an 18-foot-tall wooden sculpture of two Companions leaning on each other for support; Together (2016), two Companions in a friendly embrace, which debuted during an exhibition of KAWS’s work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in Texas; and KAWS:HOLIDAY (2018), a 92-foot-long inflatable Companion floating on its back in Seoul’s Seokchon Lake. The sculptures were re-created as toys, blurring the lines between art and commerce.
KAWS’s visual language may be drawn from cartoons, but his work doesn’t necessarily evoke childlike joy.
“My figures are not always reflecting the idealistic cartoon view that I grew up on,” he explains in the catalogue for the Fort Worth exhibition. “Companion is more real in dealing with contemporary human circumstances . . . . I think when I’m making work it also often mirrors what’s going on with me at that time.”
KAWS's résumé reads like a record of major 21st-century pop-culture moments. It includes his work with streetwear brands like A Bathing Ape and Supreme; his design for the cover of Kanye West’s 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak; and his collaboration with designer Kim Jones on the Dior Homme Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Jones’s debut as the fashion brand’s creative director.
Learn how to spot a fake KAWS art toy, and browse authentic KAWS figures, prints, sculptures and mixed media works on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Dallas, TX
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
- KAWS - Gone - Black Version - collectible Pop ArtBy KAWSLocated in Dallas, TXKAWS Gone- Black version New on its original packaging. Medium: Vinyl & Cast ResinCategory
2010s Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
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- KAWS - Companion - Brown version- MOMA 2017 - Painted Cast VinylBy KAWSLocated in Dallas, TXThis is a brand new, in its original packaged, never open. Perfect condition. KAWS's cartoonish style—including his best-known characters with X-ed out eyes—has its roots in his ea...Category
2010s Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS - FAMILY Figures - Black version - collectible Pop ArtBy KAWSLocated in Dallas, TXKAWS - FAMILY Figures - Black version New on its original packaging. Medium: Vinyl & Cast ResinCategory
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- KAWS - BFF - Pink Version _brand newBy KAWSLocated in Dallas, TXThis is a brand new piece in perfect condition. Several months after releasing the KAWS Share Figure in February, the artist released his long anticipated KAWS Take Figure. The fig...Category
2010s Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS - Share Figure - Brown Version _Brand new collectibleBy KAWSLocated in Dallas, TXThis is a brand new piece in perfect condition. KAWS SHARE (Brown version), new & unopened in its original packaging: KAWS SHARE first appeared in 'BLACKOUT' – the first London sol...Category
2010s Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS COMPANION 2020 (KAWS black companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS 2020 Companion (Black): KAWS COMPANION 2020 was created by KAWS to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his signature figure, Companion — and as cultural commentary on a year we will all never forget. KAWS' COMPANION 2020 was rendered laying down, appearing exhausted and defeated. This much historical KAWS set is rich with deep personal meaning to the artist, and is also very well sized in comparison to his other figures at 17" in length. New in original packaging. Medium: Painted vinyl cast resin figure. Dimensions: 17 x 8.75 inches. Accompanied by its original box; never displayed or opened; excellent condition. From a sold out edition of unknown. Stamped on the underside. Artist Statement: “2020, what a year... On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of COMPANION I am happy to release COMPANION 2020... Thank you for all your support over the past 20 years..." KAWS is a fine artist, illustrator, painter, sculptor, product designer, and toymaker. His cartoonish style—including his best-known characters with X-ed out eyes—has its roots in his early career as a street artist, when he began replacing advertisements with his own, masterful acrylic paintings in the early 1990s. Related Categories Takashi Murakami. Street Art. Shepard Fairey. Damien Hirst. Pop Art. Kaws figurative sculpture. Kaws metallic. Banksy. Kaws resting...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsVinyl, Resin
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21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
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21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
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21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Small Lie Grey (KAWS grey companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS SMALL LIE Grey: Among KAWS’s signature “Companions,” Small Lie has the most childlike resonance. Clothed in overall shorts, the Pinocchio-inspired figure bows its head in shame ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
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21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsVinyl, Resin
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How to Spot a Fake KAWS Figure
KAWS art toys have developed an avid audience in recent decades, and as in any robust collectible market, counterfeiters have followed the mania. Of course, you don’t have to worry about that on 1stDibs, where all our sellers are highly vetted.
KAWS Is Having a Major Effect on Popular Culture, Whether on the Street or in Museums
From graffiti tagger to hypebeast obsession to auction hero — we chart the artist’s rise and his widening influence.