KAWS
American graffiti artist and designer KAWS is best known for his vandalised cartoons and the now-iconic Companion figure. If you are looking to buy or sell a KAWS original print or edition, browse artwork available from our network and enquire to speak to the team. We offer free and confidential valuations and market advice on any KAWS print, with zero obligation to sell.
Notable collections
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KAWS Value & Data Trends
Track historical trends, sale results and forecast value in the KAWS Print Market.
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KAWS print index (5 years)
Curated index derived from public auction data (inc Sothebys, Christies and Bonhams).
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Biography
KAWS is an American graffiti artist and designer renowned for his toys, prints and his ‘subvertisements.’ Famed for its set of cartoon-like characters, KAWS's art parodies popular cultural icons such as Disney’s Mickey Mouse and operates at the interface between the commercial and fine art worlds and is often compared to the likes of Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.
Born in 1974 in the metropolitan area of New York, surrounded by a burgeoning graffiti and street art scene, KAWS produced his first pieces whilst in elementary school. It was then that he devised his own tag: KAWS. A meaningless word, he chose it simply because he liked the way the letters looked together. Moving to New York in the 1990s, KAWS began to experiment with an artistic process dubbed ‘Subvertising’. Through subvertising, KAWS would remove advertisements from phone booths and bus stops and replaced them with his own signature cartoon characters, tagging the city with his distinctively parodic style.
A decisive moment in the artist's career came when he met the owner of the Japanese toy company Bounty Hunter, Hikaru Iwanaga. Following Iwanaga’s suggestion, KAWS designed a toy for the company, his signature Pop Art-inspired Companion character – a Mickey Mouse-like figure with crossed-out eyes – now KAWS' greatest critical and commercial success. Collaborating with fashion juggernauts like Nike and Dior Homme, Companion is now a worldwide phenomenon that has taken over the world.
Since then, KAWS continued to develop his cartoonesque universe, appropriating and parodying popular cartoons through his signature x-crossed eyes and skull motifs. Two of these bodies of works, Kurfs and Kimpsons, respectively recasting The Smurfs and The Simpsons, have become some of KAWS’ most successful works at auction, fetching sums well above the million-pound threshold. Transformed into his Companion motif, his Untitled (Kimpsons No.1) was one of his most expensive works sold at auction, selling for a whopping £6 million at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, while his Kurf (HOT DOG) sold for £2.1 million at auction at Sotheby’s, New York.
A lover of video games and cartoons, it is no surprise that KAWS would be one of the first artists to venture in the world of augmented reality. In 2022, in collaboration with Acute Art, KAWS held his first large-scale exhibition in London, NEW FICTION, featuring his signature Companion motif and other works. KAWS and Acute Art also banded together with Epic Games’ popular online multiplayer Fortnite, to offer a digital version of the exhibition for players to view.
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