10 things to know about KAWS

Brian Donnelly (b. 1974) studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Before he achieved success as an artist, he worked as a background painter on animated series such as Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, and cult shows Daria and Doug.

From an early age, Donnelly was known for marking buildings in New Jersey and Manhattan with ‘KAWS’, a tag he chose because he liked the way the letters looked together. He soon moved on from this simple tag, however, and developed a unique style that involved adding cartoon-like figures to bus-shelter advertisements.

Later, he would replicate these early works of ‘subvertising’ in a series of screenprint lithographs. These included a mock Calvin Klein ad, featuring supermodel Christy Turlington being embraced by a green figure.

His origins in graffiti brought his work to a diverse audience, many of whom had nothing to do with the art world. Unlike most artists, KAWS did not start out with a gallery; he was fully aware of the benefits of showing his work in the street and mass-producing pieces in order to build a following. This following became so big that it attracted the attention of collectors and critics.

Speaking of his early days, Donnelly has said, ‘When I was doing graffiti, my whole thought was, “I just want to exist.” I want to exist with this visual language in the world… It meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn’t reaching people.’

In 1999, after being approached by Bounty Hunter, a cult toy and streetwear brand, KAWS visited Japan and created his first toy, ‘COMPANION’. Like a dystopian Mickey Mouse, it has a skull and crossbones for a head, and crosses for eyes.

Produced in an edition of 500, the toys sold out almost immediately, and COMPANION became a recurring figure in KAWS’s work.

In March 2019, a 121ft-long inflatable version of KAWS’s COMPANION was installed in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour during Art Basel. Anchored by a 40-ton weight, versions of the piece — dubbed HOLIDAY — had previously been on view in Seoul and Taipei. The installation marked a high point in the artist’s meteoric rise to fame.

Although KAWS was successful in the 2000s, the 2019 Artnet Intelligence Report reports that in 2017 his average sale price almost doubled, from $42,272 to $82,063. The following year, demand continued to climb — in November 2018, five KAWS pieces sold for more than $1 million, and across the entire year his work realised over $33.8 million at auction. More recently, 2019 remains the peak for total sale value at auction (nearing $40m), with 2022 a standout for most lots offered at auction.

KAWS’s success on social media has been a big factor in his surge to the forefront of the contemporary art world. At the time of writing, more than 1.8 million posts bearing the hashtag #kaws had been posted on Instagram, compared to 468,000 for Jeff Koons and 315,000 for Damien Hirst. Specialists have speculated that this could partly be down to the fact that his bright, Pop-art style reproduces faithfully online, but this popularity can also be attributed to KAWS’s origins as a street artist.

Described by curator and art historian Michael Auping as ‘[Clement] Greenberg’s worst nightmare’, KAWS is seen as the enfant terrible of the New York art world. Many have compared him to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, both of whom also started out on the street, as well as Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, who each had an instinctive understanding of the possibilities of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.

KAWS has name-checked his influences, which vary from Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselman to Takashi Murakami, the latter in terms of what the artist describes as ‘acceptance and crossover projects’.

No cartoon is safe from being consumed and turned into KAWS: the artist is known for subverting iconic cartoon heroes, and in doing so he demonstrates his interest in the characters’ universal cultural value, reinforcing the idea that he makes no distinction between concepts of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art.

While the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut can lay claim to giving KAWS his first institutional solo show, in 2010, between 2015 and 2019 he exhibited on his own at a string of major establishments, including New York’s Brooklyn Museum, the UK’s Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

His 2022 solo show at London’s Serpentine Gallery was recreated as an explorable map in the computer game Fortnite — making it arguably the most visited art exhibition ever.

More recently, KAWS had no fewer than three shows open in 2024 — at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, and The Drawing Center in New York City.

After successfully launching his own fashion label, Original Fake, in the early 2000s, KAWS began working with a number of cult streetwear labels, including Bathing Ape, The North Face and Supreme.

In 2019, Paris Fashion Week saw Dior designer Kim Jones debut his Spring/Summer collection with a KAWS interpretation of the fashion house’s iconic bee design, set against the backdrop of a 33ft-tall pink flower sculpture of KAWS’s ‘BFF’ character, reproduced as an editioned toy in a mini Dior suit.

KAWS has also collaborated with the Campana brothers on a range of furniture covered in plush toys, which debuted at Art Basel Miami only to be snapped up immediately by Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner.

In November 2024, Swiss watchmaker Audermars Piguet revealed its Concept Tourbillon ‘Companion’ watch, a twist on the Royal Oak model complete with a miniature sculpture of KAWS’s cross-eyed figure for a dial. In order to not obscure the design, the watch’s hands were swapped for a rotating track that indicates the hours and minutes around the bezel. Production was limited to just 250 editions.

Since 2016, KAWS has regularly teamed up with Uniqlo to design a range of clothes, accessories and toys that feature his characters, with prices under $50. In contrast, his monumental triptych IN THE WOODS (2002) sold for $3,855,000 in 2019 at Christie’s in New York — more than double its high estimate.

That figured is dwarfed, however, by the artist’s auction record. In Hong Kong in 2019, the painting The KAWS ALBUM (2005) — a mash-up of characters from The Simpsons and the album artwork for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which came from the collection of Japanese fashion designer Nigo — sold for HK$115,966,000, or $14.8 million.

The Way I See It: Selections from the KAWS Collection is on show at The Drawing Center in New York from 10 October 2024 to 19 January 2025