For twenty-five years, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly, American, born 1974) has bridged the worlds of art, popular culture, and commerce. Adapting the rules of cultural production and consumption in the twenty-first century, his practice both critiques and participates in consumer culture. Continuing in the tradition of pop art, his influential work crosses painting, sculpture, and printmaking along with fashion, merchandise, and toy production while taking inspiration from art history and popular culture. In his paintings, KAWS deconstructs his appropriation of iconic characters into forms that draw on the tradition of abstract painting. KAWS has exhibited internationally in major museums.

KAWS is one of the most recognizable and commercially successful artists of the 21st century. Straddling the worlds of fine art, design, street culture, and mass production, he has built a practice that dissolves traditional boundaries between high and low culture. His work—immediately identifiable through recurring motifs such as crossed-out eyes and cartoon-derived figures—operates at the intersection of nostalgia, branding, and emotional expression. What distinguishes KAWS is not only his visual language, but his ability to construct a global artistic ecosystem. From limited-edition toys to monumental sculptures and museum exhibitions, his work circulates across contexts with unusual fluidity, redefining how contemporary art engages with audiences and markets.

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Introduction

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KAWS, born Brian Donnelly in 1974 in Jersey City, New Jersey, studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After graduating in 1996, he began working as a freelance animator, contributing to projects for companies such as Disney, where he worked on backgrounds for animated productions.

Parallel to this commercial work, KAWS developed a street practice in New York during the 1990s. He became known for intervening in urban advertising—particularly bus shelters and phone booths—by modifying existing posters. He would extract figures from advertisements and rework them with his now-iconic visual vocabulary, inserting skull-like heads and X-ed-out eyes. These early interventions were crucial. They established his lifelong engagement with appropriation, branding, and public imagery, while also positioning him within a lineage that includes artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Artistic Practice and Technique

KAWS’s practice spans painting, sculpture, drawing, and product design. His technique is deceptively simple: clean lines, flat colors, and highly legible forms. Yet beneath this clarity lies a sophisticated understanding of visual communication.

His paintings often rework familiar cartoon imagery—drawn from sources such as The Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, and other elements of American pop culture—fragmented and recomposed into dense, overlapping compositions. These works blur abstraction and figuration, transforming recognizable imagery into rhythmic, almost painterly fields.

His sculptures, ranging from small vinyl toys to monumental public installations, are perhaps his most iconic contributions. Executed in materials such as fiberglass, aluminum, and wood, these works translate his graphic language into three dimensions, often emphasizing posture, gesture, and emotional tone.

Major Series and Bodies of Work

Companion

Companion is the central figure of KAWS’s artistic universe and one of the most iconic creations in contemporary art. Derived loosely from Mickey Mouse and other cartoon archetypes, the figure is defined by its skull-like head, crossed-out eyes, and gloved hands. More than a character, Companion functions as a conceptual framework. It serves as a vessel through which KAWS explores emotional states—melancholy, introspection, fatigue, and quiet vulnerability. Its repeated appearance across sculptures, paintings, and installations transforms it into a universal figure, capable of carrying multiple meanings depending on context, scale, and pose.

Across countless variations, standing, seated, reclining, or covering its face, the Companion embodies themes of introspection, vulnerability, and quiet melancholy. Despite its cartoon origins, the figure often conveys a surprisingly human emotional depth. Monumental versions of Companion have been installed globally, including large-scale public sculptures in cities such as Hong Kong, Seoul, and New York. The figure has become one of the most recognizable icons in contemporary art. The importance of Companion within KAWS’s market and institutional presence cannot be overstated. It is both the anchor of his visual identity and the primary driver of his global recognition.

For example, Clean Slate introduces a narrative dimension to the Companion universe by depicting an adult figure alongside a smaller child-like Companion. This pairing introduces themes of parenthood, protection, and generational continuity. The emotional register here is notably tender. Unlike the solitary introspection of earlier Companion works, Clean Slate emphasizes relational identity. The figures exist not in isolation, but within a structure of care and responsibility, expanding the psychological scope of KAWS’s practice.

Another example, Passing Through depicts a seated Companion covering its face with its hands, a pose that immediately conveys introspection, anxiety, or withdrawal. This variation is among the most psychologically charged in KAWS’s oeuvre. The concealment of the face—combined with the universality of the gesture—invites projection, allowing viewers to interpret the figure through their own emotional experiences. It exemplifies KAWS’s ability to distill complex feelings into minimal, highly legible forms.

Chum

Chum is directly derived from the Michelin Man, reinterpreted through KAWS’s visual language. By transforming a corporate mascot into a sculptural figure, KAWS engages directly with the mechanisms of branding and consumer identity. The series reflects a central tension in his work: the simultaneous critique and embrace of commercial imagery. Chum is both a reference and a reinvention, occupying a space where corporate iconography becomes collectible art.

KAWSBob (SpongeBob Series)

KAWSBob represents one of KAWS’s most direct engagements with globally recognized cartoon imagery. Drawing from SpongeBob SquarePants, these works distort and fragment the character’s familiar features, introducing elongation, compression, and expressive alteration.

The result is both humorous and subtly unsettling. By destabilizing a symbol of innocence and optimism, KAWS reveals the underlying malleability of cultural icons. At the same time, the series taps into a powerful sense of nostalgia, contributing to its strong resonance with a broad audience.

Smurfs

The Smurfs series extends KAWS’s exploration of collective memory and repetition. By isolating and recomposing Smurf characters, he transforms their uniform, cheerful identity into compositions that verge on abstraction.

The repetition of blue forms creates rhythmic visual structures, while the alteration of facial features introduces a degree of ambiguity. These works demonstrate KAWS’s increasing sophistication as a painter, where appropriation becomes a tool for formal experimentation rather than simple transformation.

Kimpsons

The Kimpsons series represents one of KAWS’s most advanced painterly developments, based on The Simpsons. Rather than depicting characters in a conventional manner, KAWS fragments and layers their forms into dense, all-over compositions.

These works operate at the threshold between figuration and abstraction. Recognizable elements coexist with dislocated fragments, creating a visual tension that reflects the saturation of contemporary image culture. The influence of modern painting becomes more pronounced here, as KAWS engages with compositional strategies that extend beyond his graphic origins.

Paintings and Fragmentation

Beyond specific character-based series, KAWS’s paintings explore fragmentation as a broader visual strategy. By breaking down and recomposing familiar imagery, he creates compositions that emphasize rhythm, repetition, and surface complexity.

This dimension of his work is essential to understanding his evolution. It positions him not only as a cultural commentator, but also as a painter engaged with formal questions of structure, color, and abstraction.

Themes and Meaning

KAWS’s work revolves around a series of interconnected themes: consumer culture, nostalgia, identity, and emotional expression. His use of familiar cartoon imagery taps into collective memory, while his alterations introduce a sense of estrangement. The crossed-out eyes, in particular, function as a universal sign—simultaneously playful and melancholic—suggesting absence, anonymity, or emotional withdrawal. Despite their commercial origins, his figures often convey introspection and vulnerability. This tension between surface accessibility and emotional depth is central to his appeal.

This recurring theme of merging high and low culture has become a hallmark of KAWS’ diverse and multifaceted body of work, and functions as a crucial postmodern mediation of today’s world. By breaking down and reconfiguring familiar forms, he challenges our assumptions about the coherence and stability of identity and meaning. In Pinch, the figure is deconstructed and reassembled in various permutations, highlighting the fluidity and multiplicity of identity. This fragmentation also speaks to the commodification of art and the commercialization of culture, as its stratification of form attempts to peel back to layers of financial interest that now permeates the art world.

Despite his association with pop art and his use of cartoon characters, KAWS’ work is anything but superficial. His works are deeply introspective, exploring themes of loneliness, isolation, and mortality in a way that is both poignant and thought-provoking. Through his use of form, the artist speaks to the ways in which our identities are often fractured and incomplete, highlighting the sense of disconnection that many of us feel in an increasingly polarized world. Therefore, in doing so, he creates a body of work that is at once relatable and yet deeply personal.

Institutional Recognition and Exhibitions

KAWS has achieved significant institutional recognition, with exhibitions at major museums worldwide. Notable presentations include exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Yuz Museum. His work has also been included in major public installations, transforming urban spaces into sites of contemporary art engagement.

KAWS has exhibited extensively in renowned institutions including solo exhibitions at—The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Qatar Museums, Doha; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Yorkshire Sculpture Brooklyn Museum, New York (2015); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and the High Art Museum, Atlanta. The artist received a retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2019-2020) and most recently, the highly acclaimed major survey at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2021.

KAWS works are cemented within the permanent collections of international institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas, the CAC Malaga in Spain, and the Rosenblum Collection in Paris.

Gallery Representation

KAWS is represented by leading international galleries, including Gagosian and Skarstedt, both of which have played a key role in positioning his work within the fine art market.

 

KAWS has redefined what it means to be a contemporary artist in a globalized, image-driven economy. By collapsing distinctions between fine art, design, and commerce, he has created a model that reflects the realities of contemporary visual culture. His influence extends beyond the art world into fashion, design, and popular culture, making him one of the most culturally pervasive artists of his time.

Ultimately, KAWS’s work succeeds because it operates on multiple levels: instantly recognizable yet emotionally resonant, commercially viable yet conceptually grounded. He has transformed the language of pop into a universal visual system—one that continues to shape the landscape of contemporary art.

 

PART I: SUMMARY

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Auction Market Overview

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2025 AUCTION STATISTICS
Turnover: USD 6,242,334
-16.8% vs. 2024
# Lots sold: 26
Sell-Through Rate: 79%

MARKET SEGMENTATION
Paintings (67.7%) / Sculptures (32.8%) in value
London (49.2%) / New-York (31.6%) / Asia (17.7%)

Highest Price Achieved at auction:
The Kaws Album, 2005
Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
HKD 115,966,000 / USD 14,773,490

KAWS’s market operates across multiple tiers. His limited-edition vinyl toys have created a broad collector base, while his unique works and large-scale sculptures command high prices in the primary and secondary markets. Major paintings have achieved multi-million-dollar results at auction, with strong demand from both traditional art collectors and new buyers entering the market through design and street culture. This dual market structure, spanning accessible editions and high-value artworks, is a defining feature of his practice.

Auction Summary

 

2025 Auction Highlights

26 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 6,242,334. With 7 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 79%. The highest price has been achieved by GONE, a sculpture dated 2020 that sold at Christie’s in London, on 26 June 2025, for GBP 567,000 (USD 776,790).

2025 Top 3 Lots

23 Paintings sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 4,226,024. With 6 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 79%.  The highest price achieved in 2025 was for a large untitled Tondo painting dated 2014, that sold at Joshua Kodner Auctioneers in Dania Beach (Florida, USA), on 21 June 2025, for USD 698,500. 12 lots sold for more than USD 100,000, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 3,611,289, representing 85.5% of the total turnover of 2025.

3 Sculptures sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 2,016,310. With 1 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 75%. The highest price has been achieved by GONE, a sculpture dated 2020 that sold at Christie’s in London, on 26 June 2025, for GBP 567,000 (USD 776,790). All 3 lots sold for more than USD 500,000.

2024 Auction Highlights

30 lots sold at auction in 2024 for a total turnover of USD 7,500,499. With 4 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 88%. The highest price has been achieved at Phillips in London on 11 October 2024, when UNTITLED, dated 2015 sold for GBP 762,000 (USD 998,500).

2024 Top 3 Lots

6 lots sold for more than USD 500,000, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 4,119,283, representing 55% of the total for 2024.

2023 Auction Highlights

20 lots sold at auction in 2023 for a total turnover of USD 6,662,280. With 3 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 87%. The top price of 2023 of USD 1,875,000 was achieved at Phillips in New-York on 14 November 2023 for UNTITLED (DBZ2) dated 2007.

2023 Top 3 Lots

Only 1 lot sold over USD 1 million. 4 lots sold over USD 500,000, for a total cumulative turnover of USD 4,121,556, representing 61.9% of the total turnover of 2023.

2022 Auction Highlights

21 lots sold at auction in 2022 for a total turnover of USD 7,009,230. With 6 lots unsold, the sell-through rate is 78%. The highest price of 2022 was achieved by HOT SEAT JUNCTION dated 2010, that sold at Phillips in Hong-Kong on 1 December 2022 for HKD 8,559,000 (USD 1,105,582).

2022 Top 3 Lots

Only 2 lots sold over USD 1 million. 5 lots sold over USD 500,000 generating a cumulative turnover of USD 4,343,965, representing 62% of the total turnover for 2022.

 

 

 

 

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Top Lots

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1. The Kaws Album, 2005

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
Estimated: HKD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
HKD 115,966,000 / USD 14,773,492

(#8) KAWS | THE KAWS ALBUM

KAWS
THE KAWS ALBUM, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
40×40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 05 on the reverse

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USD 10 million

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#2. Untitled (Kimpsons #1), 2004

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 October 2019
Estimated: HKD 48,000,000 – 68,000,000
HKD 57,877,000 / USD 7,382,553

(#1136) KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #1)

KAWS
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #1), 2004
Acrylic on canvas
108×96 inches (274.5 x 244 cm)

#3. The Walk Home, 2012

Phillips New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 5,955,000

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art E… Lot 17 May 2019 | Phillips

KAWS
The Walk Home, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
173 x 219.1 cm (68 1/8 x 86 1/4 inches)
Signed, titled and dated “KAWS..12 THE WALK HOME..” on the reverse

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USD 5 million

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#4. IN THE WOODS, 2002

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 3,855,000

KAWS (b. 1974), IN THE WOODS | Christie’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
IN THE WOODS, 2002
Acrylic on canvas over panel, in three parts
Overall: 58 1/8 x 108 3/8 inches (147.6 x 275.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘KAWS..02 “IN THE WOODS”‘ (on the reverse of the left panel)

#5. ARMED AWAY, 2014

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 25 May 2019
Estimated: HKD 12,000,000 – 16,000,000
HKD 24,125,000 / USD 3,073,502

KAWS (USA, B. 1974), ARMED AWAY | Christie’s

KAWS (USA, B. 1974)
ARMED AWAY, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
87 7/8 x 198 inches (223.2 x 503 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..14’ (on the reverse)

#6. UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP), 2004

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2018
Estimated: USD 700,000 – 900,000
USD 2,716,500

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary A… Lot 2 November 2018 | Phillips

#7. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), 2003

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 21,175,000 / USD 2,697,546

(#19) KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS)

KAWS
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), 2003
Acrylic on canvas
40×40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated 03 on the reverse

#8. KURF (HOT DOG), 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 2,660,000

(#58) KAWS | KURF (HOT DOG)

KAWS
KURF (HOT DOG), 2008
Acrylic on canvas
68×68 inches (172.7 x 172.7 cm)
Signed and dated 08 on the reverse

#9. KURFS (TANGLE), 2009

Christie’s New-York: 15 May 2019
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 2,655,000

KAWS (b. 1974), KURFS (TANGLE) | Christie’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
KURFS (TANGLE), 2009
Acrylic on canvas
72×96 inches (182.8 x 243.8 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘KAWS..09 KURFS (TANGLE)’ (on the reverse)

#10. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #3), 2003

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 20,575,000 / USD 2,621,110

(#23) KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #3)

KAWS
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #3), 2003
Acrylic on canvas
40×40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated 03 on the reverse

#11. CHUM (KCB7), 2012

Christie’s New-York: 15 November 2018
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 500,000
USD 2,412,500

KAWS (b. 1974), CHUM (KCB7) | Christie’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (KCB7), 2012
84×68 inches (213.3 x 172.7 cm)
Acrylic on canvas mounted on panel
Signed, titled and dated ‘KAWS ..12 CHUM (KCB7)’ (on the reverse)

#12. NYT (COMPANION CLOSE UP) Brown, 2013

Christie’s London: 25 June 2019
Estimated: GBP 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
GBP 1,811,250 / USD 2,299,400

KAWS (b. 1974), NYT (COMPANION CLOSE UP) Brown | Christie’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
NYT (COMPANION CLOSE UP) Brown, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
48×72 inches (121.9 x 182.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS, 13’ (on the reverse)

 

 

PART II: AUCTION RESULTS

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2026 Auction Results

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PRELIMINARY AUCTION RESULTS
As of 15 June 2026

#1. SEPARATED, 2021

Phillips New-York: 21 May 2026
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 374,100

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art: Afternoon Session

#2. UNTITLED, 2015

#3. UNTITLED (BABY GUESS), 2001

SBI Art Auction: 15 March 2026
Estimated: JPY 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
JPY 31,050,000 / USD 194,375

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
UNTITLED (BABY GUESS), 2001
Acrylic on existing advertising poster
50×26 inches (127×66 cm)

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USD 100,000

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#4. UNTITLED (MBFG7), 2014

Heritage Auctions: 7 May 2026
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 93,750

KAWS (b. 1974). UNTITLED (MBFG7), 2014. Acrylic on canvas. 58 x 48 | Lot #88068 | Heritage Auctions

REPEAT SALE

Phillips London: 8 March 2019
DETAILS COMING SOON

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFG7), 2014
Acrylic on canvas
58×48 inches (147.3 x 121.9 cm)

#5. UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 March 2026
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
HKD 645,000 / USD 82,240

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art

 

 

KAWS
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 40 inches (102 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..13’ on the reverse

#6. Moving Backward, 2023

Seoul Auction: 28 April 2026
Estimated: KRW 90,000,000 – 200,000,000
KRW 93,000,000 (Hammer)
KRW 109,740,000 / USD 74,425

Seoul Auction

KAWS
Moving Backward, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
22×18 inches (56×46 cm)
Signed

#7. Shadow of Intrigue, 2023

Seoul Auction: 28 April 2026
Estimated: KRW 90,000,000 – 200,000,000
KRW 90,000,000 (Hammer)
KRW 106,200,000 / USD 72,020

Seoul Auction

KAWS
Shadow of Intrigue, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
22×18 inches (56×46 cm)
Signed

#8. Untitled, 2000

Phillips New-York: 28 February 2026
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 49,020

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art

KAWS
Untitled, 2000
Acrylic on canvas
16 1/8 x 16 1/8 inches (41×41 cm)
Signed and dated “KAWS,, 2000” on the reverse

 

 

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Lots Passed

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NYT, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2025 Auction Results

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26 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 6,242,334. With 7 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 79%. The highest price has been achieved by GONE, a sculpture dated 2020 that sold at Christie’s in London, on 26 June 2025, for GBP 567,000 (USD 776,790).

2025 Top 3 Lots

Paintings

23 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 4,226,024. With 6 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 79%.  The highest price achieved in 2025 was for a large untitled Tondo painting dated 2014, that sold at Joshua Kodner Auctioneers in Dania Beach (Florida, USA), on 21 June 2025, for USD 698,500. 12 lots sold for more than USD 100,000, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 3,611,289, representing 85.5% of the total turnover of 2025.

Sculptures

3 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 2,016,310. With 1 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 75%. The highest price has been achieved by GONE, a sculpture dated 2020 that sold at Christie’s in London, on 26 June 2025, for GBP 567,000 (USD 776,790). All 3 lots sold for more than USD 500,000.

1. Paintings

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23 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 4,226,024. With 6 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 79%.  The highest price achieved in 2025 was for a large untitled Tondo painting dated 2014, that sold at Joshua Kodner Auctioneers in Dania Beach (Florida, USA), on 21 June 2025, for USD 698,500. 12 lots sold for more than USD 100,000, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 3,611,289, representing 85.5% of the total turnover of 2025.

#1. UNTITLED, 2014

Estate of a Refined CEO
Joshua Kodner Auctioneers: 21 June 2025
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 550,000 (Hammer)
USD 698,500

Lot – KAWS Acrylic on Canvas ‘Untitled’

KAWS (American – b. 1974)
Untitled, 2014
Acrylic Paint On Canvas
Diameter: 96 inches (243.8 cm)
Hand signed and dated on verso

#2. CHUM (KCB2), 2012

Sotheby’s London: 5 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 500,000 – 700,000
GBP 508,000 / USD 650,240

CHUM (KCB2) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (KCB2), 2012
Acrylic on canvas mounted on panel
84×68 inches (213×172 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 12 (on the reverse)

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USD 500,000

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#3. OHHH…, 2013

SBI Art Auction: 23 May 2025
Estimated: JPY 18,000,000 – 28,000,000
JPY 60,950,000 / USD 427,564

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
OHHH…, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
58 x 116 x 1 3/4 inches (147.3 x 294.6 x 4.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse

#4. UNTITLED, 2016

Sotheby’s London: 25 June 2025
Estimated: GBP 200,000 – 300,000
GBP 228,600 / USD 313,180

UNTITLED | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2016
Acrylic on shaped canvas
72×52 inches (182.9 x 132.1 cm)
Signed and dated .16 (on the reverse)

#5. UNTITLED (MBFS8), 2015

Phillips New-York: 21 November 2025
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 283,800

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

#6. UNTITLED, 2014

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 29 September 2025
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 2,032,000 / USD 261,185

KAWS | UNTITLED 無題 | Modern & Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
70 3/4 x 82 1/8 inches (179.6 x 208.5 cm)
Signed and dated 14 (on the reverse)

#7. UNTITLED (MBFV5), 2016

Sotheby’s London: 17 October 2025
Estimated: GBP 150,000 – 200,000
GBP 177,800 / USD 238,250

UNTITLED (MBFV5) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFV5), 2016
Acrylic on shaped canvas mounted on panel
60 3/8 x 36 1/4 inches (153.5 x 92 cm)
Signed and dated 16 (on the reverse)

#8. UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips London: 7 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 180,000 – 250,000
GBP 165,100 / USD 211,328

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Day … Lot 121 March 2025 | Phillips

KAWS
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 96 inches (243.8 cm)
Signed and dated “KAWS..13” on the reverse

#9. OBLIVION ALLY, 2010

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2025
Estimated: USD 180,000 – 250,000
USD 190,500

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

#11. UNTITLED (GUESS), 2002

Christie’s London: 6 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 100,000 – 150,000
GBP 88,200 / USD 112,896

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED (GUESS) | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED (GUESS), 2002
Acrylic on existing advertising poster
50×26 inches (127×66 cm)

#12. UNTITLED (H&M), 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 28 September 2025
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 838,500 / USD 107,775

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale

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USD 100,000

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#13. UNTITLED (DIESEL), 1999

Christie’s New-York: 30 September 2025
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 88,900

KAWS (B.1974), UNTITLED (DIESEL) | Christie’s

KAWS (B.1974)
UNTITLED (DIESEL), 1999
Acrylic on found advertising poster mounted on paper
29 1/2 x 71 1/8 inches (74.9 x 180.7 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS 99’ (on the reverse)

#14. Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty), 2001

Rago: 12 November 2025
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 88,900

206: KAWS (BRIAN DONNELLY), Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty) (from the Package Painting Series) < Post War & Contemporary Art, 12 November 2025 < Auctions | Rago Auctions

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) b.1974
Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty), 2001
from the Package Painting Series
Acrylic on canvas in blister package
23 5/8 x 19 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches (60x49x8 cm)
Signed, dated and inscribed to verso ‘KAWS 01’

#15. UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2003

Phillips Hong-Kong: 27 May 2025
Estimated: HKD 400,000 – 600,000
HKD 508,000 / USD 64,820

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art: Evening & Day Sale

#17. UNTITLED, 1999

#20. UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 27 May 2025
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 500,000
HKD 342,900 / USD 43,755

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art: Evening & Day Sale

#22. Accomplice, 2002

Artcurial Paris: 26 November 2025
Estimated: EUR 25,000 – 35,000
EUR 31,776 / USD 36,830

Accomplice – 2002

KAWS
Accomplice, 2002
Pastel on black paper
30×22 inches (76×56 cm)
Signed and dated

 

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Lots Passed

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YOU (#5), 2017

Phillips Hong-Kong: 12 December 2025
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
PASSED

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art & Design Sale

KAWS
YOU (#5), 2017
Acrylic on canvas
62×36 inches (157.5 x 91.4 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..17’ on the reverse

Untitled, 2012

Rago: 12 November 2025
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
PASSED

203: KAWS (BRIAN DONNELLY), Untitled < Post War & Contemporary Art, 12 November 2025 < Auctions | Rago Auctions

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) b.1974
Untitled, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 40 inches (102 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS 2012’

Untitled, 2013

Phillips New-York: 25 September 2025
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
PASSED

KAWS New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art

UNTITLED (MBFM7), 2015

Phillips London: 7 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 100,000 – 150,000
PASSED

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Day … Lot 122 March 2025 | Phillips

UNTITLED, 2015

Phillips New-York: 28 February 2025
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 400,000
PASSED

KAWS – New Now: Modern & Contempora… Lot 14 February 2025 | Phillips

UNTITLED (MBFR9), 2015

Sotheby’s New-York: 26 February 2025
Estimated: USD 180,000 – 250,000
PASSED

Untitled (MBFR9) | Contemporary Curated | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFR9), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
84×72 inches (213.4 x 182.9 cm)
Signed and dated 15 (on the reverse)

 

---

Lots Withdrawn

---

CHUM (KCA4), 2012

 

 

2. Sculptures 

---

3 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 2,016,310. With 1 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 75%. The highest price has been achieved by GONE, a sculpture dated 2020 that sold at Christie’s in London, on 26 June 2025, for GBP 567,000 (USD 776,790). All 3 lots sold for more than USD 500,000.

#1. GONE, 2020

Christie’s London: 26 June 2025
Estimated: GBP 500,000 – 700,000
GBP 567,000 / USD 776,790

KAWS (B. 1974), GONE | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1974)
GONE, 2020
Painted bronze
71 x 71 1/2 x 31 1/8 inches (180.3 x 181.6 x 79.1 cm)
Stamped with the artist’s signature, number and date ‘1⁄1 KAWS.. 20’ (on the underside)
This work is number one from an edition of one, plus one artist’s proof

#2. GONE, 2018

Phillips London: 6 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 600,000 – 800,000
GBP 571,500 / USD 731,520

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Eveni… Lot 27 March 2025 | Phillips

#3. TOGETHER, 2017

Christie’s New-York: 30 September 2025
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 508,000

KAWS (B. 1975), TOGETHER | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1975)
TOGETHER, 2017
Painted bronze
72x56x40 inches (182.9 x 142.2 x 101.6 cm)
This work is number one from an edition of seven plus two artist’s proofs

---

Lots Passed

---

COMPANION (RESTING PLACE), 2013

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2025
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
PASSED

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

SMALL LIE, 2013

Sotheby’s New-York: 26 September 2025
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
WITHDRAWN

SMALL LIE | Contemporary Curated | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
SMALL LIE, 2013
Wood
96 x 44 1/2 x 41 inches (243.8 x 113 x 104.1 cm)
This work is number 2 from an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs

 

---

2024 Auction Results

---

30 lots sold at auction in 2024 for a total turnover of USD 7,500,499. With 4 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 88%. The highest price has been achieved at Phillips in London on 11 October 2024, when UNTITLED, dated 2015 sold for GBP 762,000 (USD 998,500).

NB: Sculptures in editions of less than 10 included are considered. Higher edition sizes are categorized within the Prints & Multiples segment.

2024 Top 3 Lots

6 lots sold for more than USD 500,000, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 4,119,283, representing 55% of the total for 2024.

 

#1. UNTITLED, 2015

Phillips London: 11 October 2024
Estimated: GBP 250,000 – 350,000
GBP 762,000 / USD 998,500

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Da… Lot 120 October 2024 | Phillips

#2. PAY THE DEBT TO NATURE, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 7,500,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 5,969,000 / USD 764,179

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Evening… Lot 23 May 2024 | Phillips

#3. Small Lie, 2013

Sotheby’s New-York: 1 March 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 698,500

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/contemporary-curated/small-lie

KAWS (b. 1974)
Small Lie, 2013
Afromasia wood
91x33x40 inches (231.1 x 83.8 x 101.6 cm)
This work is number 3 from an edition of 3

#4. BETTER KNOWING, 2003

Phillips New-York: 20 November 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 571,500

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art D… Lot 324 November 2024 | Phillips

#5. UNTITLED, 2012

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 554,400

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
84×120 inches (213.4 x 304.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..12’ (on the reverse)

#6. COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2011

Phillips London: 11 October 2024
Estimated: GBP 120,000 – 180,000
GBP 406,400 / USD 532,384

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Da… Lot 139 October 2024 | Phillips

#7. Untitled, 2013

Phillips London: 27 June 2024
Estimated: GBP 200,000 – 300,000
GBP 304,800 / USD 386,486

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/UK010424/63

#9. Untitled (MBFV8), 2015

SBI Art Auction: 24 May 2024
Estimated: JPY 35,000,000 – 55,000,000
JPY 48,300,000 / USD 307,670

https://www.sbiartauction.co.jp/en/results/detail/123/159

KAWS
Untitled (MBFV8), 2015
Acrylic on canvas, mounted on panel
60 1/8 x 47 inches (152.7 x 119.3 cm)
Signed and dated on the reverse

#10. PERFECTLY CLEAR, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
HKD 2,286,000 / USD 292,664

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/173

#11. COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2011

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 2,032,000 / USD 260,146

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/172

#14. Untitled, 2012

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 165,100

Untitled | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 40 inches (101.6 cm)
Signed and dated 12 (on the reverse)

#15. CHUM (ORANGE), 2009

Sotheby’s New-York: 21 November 2024
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 144,000

CHUM (ORANGE) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (ORANGE), 2009
Painted bronze
20 1/2 x 13 x 6 inches (52.1 x 33 x 15.2 cm)
Incised with the artist’s signature, date 08 and number 2/3 (on the underside)
This work is number 2 from an edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof

#16. AGREED, 2011

Phillips New-York: 12 March 2024
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 139,700

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 32 March 2024 | Phillips

#17. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2002

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 27 September 2024
Estimated: HKD 900,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 1,008,000 / USD 129,570

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2002
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Package: 23 1/2 x 19 x 2 7/8 inches (59.5 x 48.5 x 7.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,, 2002’ (on the reverse)

#18. CHUM (Black), 2009

Sotheby’s London: 10 October 2024
GBP 100,000 – 150,000
GBP 84,000 / USD 109,760

CHUM (Black) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (Black), 2009
Painted bronze
20 1/2 x 13 x 6 inches (52.5 x 33 x 15.2 cm)
Incised with the artist’s signature and numbered 3/3 (on the underside of the left foot)
This work is number 3 from an edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof

 

#19. GONE AND BEYOND B-9, 2012

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 700,000 – 1,000,000
HKD 762,000 / USD 97,555

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/175

#20. UNTITLED, 2012

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 95,250

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sa… Lot 381 May 2024 | Phillips

#21. UNTITLED, 2013

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 94,500

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
24×32 inches (61 x 81.3 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..13’ (on the reverse)

#22. UNTITLED (HTLD7), 2011

Phillips London: 19 April 2024
Estimated: GBP 50,000 – 70,000
GBP 57,150 / USD 72,466

KAWS – New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art Lot 34 April 2024 | Phillips

#23. UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES (SM1), 2000

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 400,000 – 600,000
HKD 508,000 / USD 65,036

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/176

#24. BORN TO BEND, 2013

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 63,000

KAWS (B. 1974), BORN TO BEND | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
BORN TO BEND, 2013
Painted bronze and painted steel base
16 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 6 inches (41.9 x 27.3 x 15.2 cm)
Signed, numbered and dated ‘KAWS..13 6/10’ (on the underside)
This work is number six from an edition of ten plus two artist’s proofs

#25. BLACK SPOT, 10-21, 2010-2011

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 57,150

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sa… Lot 382 May 2024 | Phillips

#28. UNTITLED (MBFQ4), 2015

SBI Art Auction: 25 October 2024
Estimated: JPY 7,000,000 – 13,000,000
JPY 6,900,000 / USD 45,430

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
UNTITLED (MBFQ4), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
35 1/8 x 23 inches (89.2 × 58.5 cm)
Signed and dated on the reverse

#29. UNTITLED, 2018

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 July 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 42,000

UNTITLED | Contemporary Discoveries | 2024 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 20 inches  (50.8 cm)
Signed and dated ”18 (on the reverse)

#30. THE VISIT, 2023

Christie’s New-York: 13 March 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 21,420

KAWS (B. 1974), THE VISIT | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1974)
THE VISIT, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
Image: 13 x 10 3/4 inches (33 x 27.3 cm)
Sheet: 15 3/4 x 14 inches (40 x 35.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,,23’ (on the reverse)

 

Lots Passed

---

UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 2000

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
PASSED

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/the-now-evening-auction-2/kaws-untitled-calvin-klein-wu-ti-ka-er-wen-ke-lai

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 2000
Acrylic on existing advertising poster
68×48 inches (172.7 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2000

UNTITLED (MBFL2), 2015

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
PASSED

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/contemporary-day-auction/kaws-untitled-mbfl2-wu-ti-mbfl2

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFL2), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
72×120 inches (183×305 cm)
Signed and dated 15 on the reverse

 

---

2023 Auction Results

---

1. Paintings

---

20 lots sold at auction in 2023 for a total turnover of USD 6,662,280.

With 3 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 87%. The top price of 2023 of USD 1,875,000 was achieved at Phillips in New-York on 14 November 2023 for UNTITLED (DBZ2) dated 2007. Only 1 lot sold over USD 1 million. 4 lots sold over USD 500,000, for a total cumulative turnover of USD 4,121,556, representing 61.9% of the total turnover of 2023.

2023 Top 3 Lots

#1. UNTITLED (DBZ2), 2007

Phillips New-York: 14 November 2023
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,875,000

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 57 November 2023 | Phillips

#2. POKE, 2010

Christie’s New-York: 12 May 2023
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 844,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
POKE, 2010
Acrylic on canvas in three parts
Left: 60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Center: 60×36 inches (152.4 x 91.4 cm)
Right: 60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Overall: 60×136 inches (152.4 x 345.4 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..10’ (on the reverse of each canvas)

#3. Pinch, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 5,500,000 – 7,500,000
HKD 6,096,000 / USD 776,770

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 31 March 2023 | Phillips

#4. Going as Friends, 2013

Ravenel Taiwan: 4 June 2023
Estimated: TWD 17,000,000 – 24,000,000
TWD 19,200,000 / USD 626,223

Ravenel | KAWS (Brian Donnelly)《Going As Friends》 Ravenel Spring Auction 2023 Taipei Lot 235

KAWS
Going as Friends, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 243.8 cm
Signed and dated on reverse

---

USD 500,000

---

#5. CONTROL, 2013

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
HKD 3,810,000 / USD 486,544

KAWS | CONTROL 控制 | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
CONTROL, 2013
Acrylic on canvas, mounted on wood panel
60×77 inches (152.2 x 196.5 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 13 on the reverse

#6. METICULOUS, 2018

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 November 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 242,645

KAWS (B. 1974)
METICULOUS, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
74×60 inches (188×153 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..18’ (on the reverse)

#7. AGREED, 2011

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 May 2023
Estimated: USD 180,000 – 250,000
USD 228,600

AGREED | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
AGREED, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 60 inches (152.4 cm)
Signed and dated “11 (on the reverse)

#8. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 9), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 1,651,000 / USD 210,836

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 9), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas, in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 41×41 cm (16 1/8 x 16 1/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 2001 on the reverse

#9. KawsBob, 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 9 March 2023
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 190,500

KAWS (b. 1974)
KawsBob, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
20×16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed KAWS and dated ”08 (on the reverse)

#10. GONE AND BEYOND A-3, 2012

Poly Hong-Kong: 6 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 1,200,000 / USD 152,870

GONE AND BEYOND A-3｜Poly Auction Hong Kong

KAWS
GONE AND BEYOND A-3, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 40 inches (101.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..12’ (on the reverse)

#11. Two works: (i) T.N.O.N.-Y; (ii) T.N.O.N.-F, 2012

Phillips New-York: 16 May 2023
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 152,400

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 421 May 2023 | Phillips

REPEAT SALE

Phillips New-York: 9 March 2022
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 226,800

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 32 March 2022 | Phillips

 

#12. Untitled, 2014

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 1,143,000 / USD 145,607

KAWS | Untitled 無題 | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
35×23 inches (89.5 x 58.5 cm)
Signed and dated 14 on the reverse

#13. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 4), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

SBI Art Auction: 28 October 2023
Estimated: JPY 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
JPY 19,550,000 / USD 130,008

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 4) (PACKAGE SERIES), 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
Signed, dated and inscribed “KIMPSONS 4” on the reverse

#14. UNTITLED, 2013

Christie’s New-York: 10 November 2023
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 107,100

KAWS (B.1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B.1974)
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
22×28 inches (55.9 x 71.1 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..13’ (on the reverse)

#15. Untitled (Running Chum), 2001

Bonhams London: 16 March 2023
Estimated: GBP
GBP 88,500 / USD 106,795

Bonhams : KAWS (B. 1974) Untitled (Running Chum) 2001

#16. BomB 1, 2000

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 700,000 – 1,000,000
HKD 825,500 / 105,401

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 119 October 2023 | Phillips

#17. UNTITLED (CHUM), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Christie’s New-York: 29 September 2023
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 88,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
23 1/2 x 19 inches (59.7 x 48.3 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,,01’ (on the reverse)

#19. UNTITLED, 1996

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2023
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 63,500

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 370 November 2023 | Phillips

 

2. Sculptures

---

 

#1. AT THIS TIME, 2013

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 5,500,000 – 7,500,000
HKD 8,128,000 / USD 1,038,890

KAWS | AT THIS TIME 此時 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
AT THIS TIME, 2013
Wood (Black)
104 x 44 x 39 3/8 inches (264.2 x 11.8 x 100 cm)
This work is artist’s proof number 2, from an edition of 3, plus 2 artist’s proofs

#2. Small Lie, 2013

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
HKD 6,985,000 / USD 889,900

KAWS | Small Lie 小謊言 | 50th Anniversary Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s

 

KAWS (b. 1974)
Small Lie, 2013
Wood
96 x 44 1/2 x 41 inches (243.8 x 113 x 104.1 cm)
This work is from an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs

 

 

 

---

2022 Auction Results

---

1. Paintings

---

21 lots sold at auction in 2022 for a total turnover of USD 7,009,230.

With 6 lots unsold, the sell-through rate is 78%. The highest price of 2022 was achieved by HOT SEAT JUNCTION dated 2010, that sold at Phillips in Hong-Kong on 1 December 2022 for HKD 8,559,000 (USD 1,105,582). Only 2 lots sold over USD 1 million. 5 lots sold over USD 500,000 generating a cumulative turnover of USD 4,343,965, representing 62% of the total turnover for 2022.

2022 Top 3 Lots

 

#1. HOT SEAT JUNCTION, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
HKD 8,559,000 / USD 1,100,439

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 23 December 2022 | Phillips

#2. THIS IS THE WAY, 2014

Phillips London: 3 March 2022
Estimated: GBP 600,000 – 800,000
GBP 796,900 / USD 1,066,345

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 42 March 2022 | Phillips

#3. WILL IT HAPPEN, 2011

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 3,800,000 – 5,800,000
HKD 6,804,000 / USD 871,748

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
WILL IT HAPPEN, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
68×86 inches (173 x 218.7 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS .. 11’ (on the reverse)

#4. CHUM (KCO18), 2016

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 7 October 2022
Estimated: HKD 4,500,000 – 6,500,000
HKD 5,670,000 / USD 722,247

KAWS | CHUM (KCO18) | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (KCO18), 2016
Acrylic on canvas mounted on panel
60×49 inches (153 x 135.3 cm)
Signed and dated 16 on the reverse

#5. TEE-HEE, 2014

Yongle Auction: 26 July 2022
Estimated: CNY 3,400,000 – 4,000,000
CNY 3,910,000 / USD 578,043

KAWS (b. 1974)
TEE-HEE, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
55×57 inches (153 x 135.3 cm)
Signed and dated 14 on the reverse

#6. UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips Hong-Kong: 22 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 3,500,000 – 4,500,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 417,340

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 32 June 2022 | Phillips

#7. Gone and Beyond A-3, 2012

Zhong Cheng Auctions: 6 November 2022
Estimated: TWD 8,000,000 – 13,000,000
TWD 9,600,000 / USD 299,531 

KAWS
Gone and Beyond A-3, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 40 inches (101.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS.. 12’ on the reverse

#8. NEVER CAN TELL, 2010

Poly Hong-Kong: 13 July 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 2,040,000 / USD 259,875

NEVER CAN TELL｜Poly Auction Hong Kong

KAWS (B.1974)
KAWSBOB (IT TOOK FIVE MINUTES), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2010
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
18x15x3 inches (45.7 x 38.1 x 7.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS ,,10’ (on the reverse)

#10. KURF (CLUTCH), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2009

Phillips Hong-Kong: 21 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,200,000 – 2,200,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 240,770

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 107 June 2022 | Phillips

#11. Two works: (i) T.N.O.N.-Y; (ii) T.N.O.N.-F, 2012

Phillips New-York: 9 March 2022
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 226,800

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 32 March 2022 | Phillips

#12. Untitled, diptych, 2013

Heritage Auctions: 28 July 2022
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 187,500

KAWS (b. 1974). Untitled, diptych, 2013. Acrylic on canvas. 35 x 23 | Lot #66072 | Heritage Auctions

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled, diptych, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Each: 35×23 inches (88.9 x 58.4 cm)
Signed and dated to reverse of each canvas

#13. YOU (#3), 2017

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 1,260,000 / USD 161,434

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 156 November 2022 | Phillips

#14. UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 1999

Phillips Hong-Kong: 21 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
HKD 1,008,000 / USD 128,405

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 228 June 2022 | Phillips

#15. GONE AND BEYOND A-2, 2012

Phillips New-York: 28 September 2022
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 107,100

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 27 September 2022 | Phillips

 

#16. Untitled, 1997

Bonhams Hong-Kong: 3 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 550,000 – 750,000
HKD 696,000 / USD 89,349

Bonhams : KAWS (B. 1974) Untitled

#17. UNTITLED (MBFE8), 2014

Sotheby’s New-York: 30 September 2022
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 90,000
USD 88,200

UNTITLED (MBFE8) | Contemporary Curated | 2022 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFE8), 2014
Acrylic on canvas
74×60 inches  (188 x 152.5 cm)

#19. UNTITLED, 2018

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
HKD 504,000 / USD 64,573

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 132 November 2022 | Phillips

#21. UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002

Poly Hong-Kong: 13 July 2022
Estimated: HKD 350,000 – 550,000
HKD 420,000 / USD 53,503

UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES)｜Poly Auction Hong Kong

 

2. Sculptures

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#1. COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE), 2011

Sotheby’s New-York: 17 November 2022
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 982,800

COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE), 2011
Fiberglass and paint
96x48x36 inches (244x122x92 cm)
This work is from an edition of 3, plus 2 artist’s proofs

#2. HOLIDAY (4), 2020

Christie’s Shanghai: 1 March 2022
Estimated: CNY 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
CNY 2,520,000 / USD 399,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
HOLIDAY (4), 2020
Aluminum, paint sculpture
11 x 39 3/8 x 15 3/4 inches (28x100x40 cm)
Incised, dated and numbered 3⁄10 KAWS .. 20′ (on the underside)
Edition 3 of 10 with 2 APs

 

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2021 Auction Results

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1. Paintings

---

34 lots sold at auction in 2021 for a total turnover of USD 12,532,504.

With 8 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 81%. The highest price has been achieved at Phillips in New-York on 17 November 2021, when THE WAY HE KNOWS, a painting dated 2010 sold for USD 1,542,500.

 

#1. THE WAY HE KNOWS, 2010

Phillips New-York: 17 November 2021
Estimated: USD 850,000 – 1,000,000
USD 1,542,500

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 23 November 2021 | Phillips

#2. UNTITLED (US), 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 11,745,000 / USD 1,505,923

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 257 November 2021 | Phillips

#4. URGE (KUA9), 2020

Christie’s New-York: 12 November 2021
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 810,000

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
URGE (KUA9), 2020
Acrylic on canvas
36×30 inches (91.4 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..20’ (on the reverse)

#5. UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 2000

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2021
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 746,000

UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN) | Contemporary Art Day Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 2000
Acrylic on advertisement poster, in 2 parts
Each: 50×26 inches (127×66 cm)
Each signed and dated 2000

#6. NEW YORK, 2018

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 5,040,000 / USD 646,410

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 46 November 2021 | Phillips

#7. Untitled, 2015

K Auction Seoul: 23 July 2021
Estimated: KRW 600,000,000 – 800,000,000
KRW 736,000,000 / USD 639,535

KAWS
Untitled, 2015
Acrylic on canvas
58×48 inches (147.3 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and dated on the reverse

#8. UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 450,000 – 700,000
USD 604,800

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 377 June 2021 | Phillips

#9. THE GREAT BELOW, 2011

Phillips New-York: 28 September 2021
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 529,200

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 26 September 2021 | Phillips

#12. Untitled (MBFR7), 2015

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 22 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
HKD 3,780,000 / USD 486,715

KAWS | Untitled (MBFR7) 無題（MBFR7） | Contemporary Curated: Asia | JAY CHOU x SOTHEBY’S | Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled (MBFR7), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
72 1/4 x 120 1/8 inches (183.5 x 305 cm)
Signed and dated 15 on the reverse

#13. KAWSBOB, 2008

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 20 April 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 422,105

KAWS | KAWSBOB | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b.1974)
KAWSBOB, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
20×16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated KAWS.08 on the reverse

#14. UNTITLED, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,200,000 – 3,200,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 420,015

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 255 November 2021 | Phillips

 

#16. UNTITLED (HTLA9), 2011

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 1,300,000 – 1,800,000
HKD 2,142,000 / USD 276,050

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 161 June 2021 | Phillips

#17. WHAT PARTY (KCC3), 2019

Christie’s online: 22 July 2021
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 275,000

KAWS (B. 1974), WHAT PARTY (KCC3) | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
WHAT PARTY (KCC3), 2019
Acrylic on canvas
36×30 inches (91.4 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..19’ (on the reverse)

#18. Untitled (Diptych), 2013

Ravenel Taipei: 17 July 2021
Estimated: TWD 6,000,000 – 9,000,000
TWD 7,200,000 / USD 257,145

Ravenel | KAWS (Brian Donnelly)《Untitled (Diptych)》 Ravenel Spring Auction 2021 Taipei Lot 065

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) (American, 1974)
Untitled (Diptych), 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Each: 35×23 inches (89 x 58.5 cm)
Signed reverse Kaws.. and dated 13 of each canvas

#19. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 243,575

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 132 June 2021 | Phillips

#20. UNTITLED (HARING), 1997

SBI Art Auction: 30 October 2021
Estimated: JPY 8,000,000 – 16,000,000
JPY 27,600,000 / USD 242,170

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
UNTITLED (HARING), 1997
Acrylic on existing advertising poster
24×25 inches (61 x 63.5 cm)
Signed and dated on the right

#21. UNTITLED (CHUM), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 2 December 2021
Estimated: HKD 600,000 – 800,000
HKD 1,375,000 / USD 176,431

KAWS (B.1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B.1974)
UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Package: 23 1⁄2 x 19 inches (59.5 x 48.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,, 01’ (on the reverse)

#22. UNTITLED, 2014

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 700,000 – 1,000,000
HKD 1,197,000 / USD 154,265

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 137 June 2021 | Phillips

#23. UNTITLED, 1996

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 151,200

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 426 June 2021 | Phillips

#24. UNTITLED, 1999

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 138,600

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 425 June 2021 | Phillips

#25. UNTITLED, 2017

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 10 October 2021
Estimated: HKD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
HKD 1,071,000 / USD 137,570

KAWS | UNTITLED 無題 | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 20 inches (40.6 cm)
Signed and dated 17 on the reverse

#26. UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2003

New Auction: 6 November 2021
Estimated: JPY 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
JPY 14,950,000 / USD 131,815

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2003
Acrylic on canvas
23 3/8 x 19 1/8 x 3 inches (59.5 x 48.6 x 7.5 cm)
Signed and dated on the verso

#27. Untitled (Kimpson), 2005

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 November 2021
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 126,000

Untitled (Kimpson) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled (Kimpson), 2005
Acrylic on canvas
8×8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 cm)
Signed KAWS and dated ”05 (on the overlap)

#28. Untitled, 1999

Artcurial Paris: 5 July 2021
Estimated: EUR 50,000 – 70,000
EUR 78,000 / USD 92,550

Urban & Pop Contemporary | Artcurial

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled, 1999
Acrylic on canvas
16×16 inches (40.7 x 40.7 cm)
Signed and dated on the back

#29. UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES, 2002

SBI Art Auction: 30 October 2021
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 8,000,000
JPY 10,005,000 / USD 87,785

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

KAWS
UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES, 2002
Acrylic on canvas, with original package
Painting: 6 x 4 3/4 inches (15.1 x 12.2 cm)
Package: 9 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches (25 x 18.9 cm)
Signed, dated and stamped on the wooden framework

#30. Untitled, 1999

Ravenel Taipei: 5 December 2021
Estimated: TWD 1,500,000 – 2,400,000
TWD 2,400,000 / USD 86,580

Ravenel | KAWS (Brian Donnelly)《Untitled》 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2021 Taipei Lot 249

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) (American, 1974)
Untitled, 1999
Acrylic on canvas
16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Signed on the reverse KAWS’99

#31. UNTITLED, 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 23 September 2021
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 500,000
HKD 630,000 / USD 80,920

KAWS – INTERSECT: Online Auction Lot 45 September 2021 | Phillips

#32. SKETCHBOOK, 1993-94

Sotheby’s New-York: 1 October 2021
Estimated: USD 35,000 – 55,000
USD 75,600

SKETCHBOOK | Public Intervention: Art of the Street | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
SKETCHBOOK, 1993-94
Pen, pencil, colored pencil, felt-tip pen, tape, stickers, and photo and paper collage in bound artist’s sketchbook
6 x 9 x 1 inches (15.2 x 22.9 x 2.5 cm)
Variously signed and dated 93 and 94

#33. UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 500,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,385

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 254 November 2021 | Phillips

#34. UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 20 September 2021
Estimated: HKD 240,000 – 450,000
HKD 441,000 / USD 56,640

Untitled (Original Fake Series) | 無題（Original Fake 系列） | Contemporary Showcase: Otaku Redux | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002
Acrylic on canvas, in plastic bag with hang tag
Package: 9 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches (25×19 cm)
Canvas: 6×5 inches (15 x 12.5 cm)
Signed, dated 02 and stamped ORIGINAL FAKE 2002 on the reverse

 

2. Sculptures

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#1. TOGETHER, 2017

Phillips Hong-Kong: 8 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 9,000,000
HKD 10,656,000 / USD 1,373,150

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 34 June 2021 | Phillips

#2. Final Days, 2016

Sotheby’s London: 10 November 2021
Estimated: GBP 700,000 – 1,000,000
GBP 874,100 / USD 1,180,955

Final Days | Contemporary Curated | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Final Days, 2016
Afromosia wood
81 1/2 x 64 1/8 x 90 1/8 inches (207x163x229 cm)
This work is number 1 from an edition of 3, plus 2 artist’s proofs

#3. Waiting, 2017

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2021
Estimated: HKD 5,200,000 – 7,200,000
HKD 9,130,000 / USD 1,171,465

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
Waiting, 2017
Bronze and paint sculpture
70 1/4 x 33 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches (178.4 x 85.1 x 72.1 cm)
Signed, dated and numbered 3⁄7 KAWS..17′ (on the underside)

#4. FINAL DAYS, 2014

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 6,200,000 – 8,200,000
HKD 8,115,000 / USD 1,040,740

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 47 November 2021 | Phillips

#5. COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2010

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 10 October 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 420,805

KAWS | COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH) 同伴（PASSING THROUGH） | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2010
Bronze
47 1/8 x 25 5/8 x 28 inches (119.6 x 65 x 71 cm)
This work is AP2 from an edition of 10, plus 2 artist’s proofs

#6. KAWS ASTRO BOY, 2003

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 20 April 2021
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 3,150,000 / USD 405,845

KAWS | KAWS ASTRO BOY | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
KAWS ASTRO BOY, 2003
Hand Painted Resin
19 x 11 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches (48x30x12 cm)
Signed and titled 03 on the underside
Executed in 2003, this work is unique

#7. KAWS (ORIGINALFAKE) COMPANION, 2006

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 2,520,000 / USD 323,090

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 258 November 2021 | Phillips

#8. Chum (Orange), 2009

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 November 2021
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 315,000

Chum (Orange) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s

 

KAWS (b. 1974)
Chum (Orange), 2009
Painted bronze
21 x 13 x 6 1/4 inches (53.3 x 33 x 15.9 cm)
Incised KAWS, dated 08 and numbered 2/3 (on the underside)
This work is number 2 from an edition of 3, plus 1 artist’s proof

#9. (OriginalFake) Companion, 2006

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 21 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 700,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 243,360

KAWS | (OriginalFake) Companion (ORIGINALFAKE)同伴 | Contemporary Curated: Asia | JAY CHOU x SOTHEBY’S | Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
(OriginalFake) Companion, 2006
Bronze
Sculpture: 15 1/4 x 6 3/4 x 4 5/8 inches (38.8 x 17 x 11.8 cm)
Incised KAWS and dated 06 to the underside of the right foot
Incised 10/10 to the underside of the left foot
Box signed, dated 06 and numbered 10/10
This work is number 10 from an edition of 10

#10. KAWS Accomplice, 2006

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 November 2021
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 176,400

KAWS Accomplice | Contemporary Day Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
KAWS Accomplice, 2006
Painted bronze and wood box
Sculpture: 10 x 4 x 2 1/4 inches (25.4 x 10.2 x 5.7 cm)
Box: 12 1/2 x 5 3/8 x 3 3/4 inches (31.8 x 13.7 x 9.5 cm)
Signed KAWS, dated 06 and numbered 1/10 (on the underside)
Signed KAWS, dated 06 and numbered 1/10 (on the box lid)
This work is number 1 from an edition of 10, plus 2 artist’s proofs

#11. BORN TO BEND, 2013

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 600,000 – 800,000
HKD 1,260,000 / USD 161,490

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 143 June 2021 | Phillips

 

#12. BORN TO BEND, 2013

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 600,000 – 800,000
HKD 1,197,000 / USD 153,415

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 142 June 2021 | Phillips

 

 

 

PART III: FOCUS

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KAWSBOB

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PERFECTLY CLEAR, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
HKD 2,286,000 / USD 292,664

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/173

AGREED, 2011

Phillips New-York: 12 March 2024
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 139,700

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 32 March 2024 | Phillips

The emotional intensity of KAWSBOB is in part so effective because its visual language recalls the techniques of Pop art. AGREED uses the vernacular, mass-culture icon of SpongeBob to produce a recognizable and accessible subject. In the same way that Pop art’s appropriation of consumer culture disobeyed the tenets of fine art, this work is aesthetically radical. Borrowing from advertisements and comics, Warhol and Lichtenstein were the precursors of KAWS communicative graphic style. Yet KAWS has developed a distinctly hybrid approach which results from his years as a graffiti artist, his formal training in painting and sculpture, as well as his experience as a background animator at Disney’s studios. These experiences all coalesce to create an art form that is capable of communicating with a near-universal audience and displays the convergence between popular culture and high art.

POKE, 2010

Christie’s New-York: 12 May 2023
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 844,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
POKE, 2010
Acrylic on canvas in three parts
Left: 60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Center: 60×36 inches (152.4 x 91.4 cm)
Right: 60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Overall: 60×136 inches (152.4 x 345.4 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..10’ (on the reverse of each canvas)

One of the most brazen contemporary artists working today, KAWS is regarded globally for his distinctive cartoon-inspired paintings and sculptures. Shocking the senses with vivid neon’s and highly familiar iconography, these paintings are prized for their cultural significance and critical commentary on consumerism, globalization, and the commercialization of art. The artist’s use of cartoon creates a sense of childlike innocence that belies the deeper themes that KAWS explores in his art. Through his work, KAWS challenges traditional notions of high art and popular culture, creating a bridge between the two and inviting viewers to reconsider their assumptions about what constitutes “real” art.

KAWS’s 2010 painting POKE depicts the well-known character SpongeBob SquarePants in a triptych format, subverting the recognizable subject from pop culture as it becomes a fragmented, abstract version of itself. The disjointing of the character’s features adds to the sense of chaos and anxiety this work portrays. The fusion of each different facial feature on the three separate canvases comes together to generate an overwhelming feeling of madness and unease, further emphasized by the close-up crop of the work which creates a claustrophobic atmosphere. KAWS has a unique ability to convey complex human emotions and anxieties through cartoon imagery. This skill is what makes him one of the most prominent contemporary artists, bridging the gap between high art and popular culture.
KAWS began his artistic career in the streets of New Jersey, painting graffiti on trains, billboards, walls, and any surface he could find. By the 1990s, the now experienced street artist had begun interfering with popular advertisements, breaking into encasements at bus stops and phonebooths and adding his own modifications to ads featuring cartoon characters such as Snoopy and Woodstock. This foray into disruption, particularly with characters of popular cultural significance, would prove incredibly impactful for KAWS, who found in this new mode, a means of communicating his ideas via easily consumable and digestible figures in the public eye. These early street artworks became a critique on consumerism and the culture of corporate mass production marketed through kitschy and comforting characters, a critique KAWS would then turn on its head as he transitioned into the appropriative canvases that now make up such a central role in his body of work. These paintings of so-called ‘KAWSBOBS’, ‘KURFS’, and ‘KIMPSONS’ take hyper-commodified cartoon characters and reappropriate them to KAWS’s whims, the artist often imparting human emotion, anxieties, and frustrations onto their vibrantly colorful surfaces. A continuation on the resounding legacy of Pop Art, POKE, as well as KAWS’s larger body of cartoon appropriations, infiltrates consumerist society at its core, allowing the artist’s ideas to permeate throughout the fabric of pop culture.

Pinch, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 5,500,000 – 7,500,000
HKD 6,096,000 / USD 776,770

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 31 March 2023 | Phillips

Adept at subverting and refashioning the familiar in pop culture, KAWS has always tended to cartoons as a means of highlighting the inherent malleability of cultural symbols. Pinch, painted in 2010, is an extravagant contortion of Cubist measures where the culturally ubiquitous character SpongeBob SquarePants is reconditioned into KAWS’ unique visual vocabulary. Facial features are unanchored and clash together to produce seismic levels of pictorial chaos that is supercharged with raw emotion. By dissecting the figure and isolating certain constituents to magnify the significance of the eyes and mouth, we are compelled to confront these abstracted forms directly. This in turn adds a complex layer to our interpretive process and necessitates our active engagement with the artwork, provoking us to imbue it with our own perspicacious conjectures.

Despite being rooted in their source imagery, KAWS’s paintings are not appropriations of specific animated cartoon narratives but rather form broader dialogues of universal human emotions. Of his practice, KAWS has commented, ‘even though I use a comic language, my figures are not always reflecting the idealistic cartoon view that I grew up on, where everything has a happy ending’

It is interesting to note that the current lot was exhibited as part of KAWS: PAY THE DEBT TO NATURE. This exhibition title may be a subtle reference to a line in Thomas Pynchon’s famous novel, Gravity’s Rainbow. In the novel, a character reads a tombstone with the words, ‘Death is a debt to nature due, which I have paid, and so must you,’ which is a powerful reference to the novel’s opening epitaph: ‘Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation.’ Remarkable that almost four decades after the publication of Gravity’s Rainbow, KAWS’ artistic practice is similarly adept at blending diverse cultural elements in his works, much like Pynchon’s penchant for combining high and low culture.

KawsBob, 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 9 March 2023
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 190,500

KawsBob | Contemporary Curated | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
KawsBob, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
20×16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed KAWS and dated ”08 (on the reverse)

KawsBob from 2008 exemplifies KAWS’s commitment to the iconoclastic reinvention of 21st century pop culture landmarks, particularly cartoons. In this work, KAWS takes a beloved cartoon character and imagines an emotionally nuanced update of this pop culture icon. The result is simultaneously humorous and sinister – a dichotomy that is central to the artist’s practice. As indicated by the work’s playful title, the subject is a hybrid of the well-known cartoon and KAWS’s proprietary style, creatively fusing two distinct elements of today’s zeitgeist. The striking, meticulous yellow paint draws the viewer in. It matches the cartoon’s typical bright hues but appears even more intense as the subject’s head is blown up to consume – and nearly pop out of – the flat canvas. This dynamism inscribes KAWS’s work in the lineage of the Pop Art movement, in which artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein utilized bright colors, industrial uniformity, and impactful proportions to mimic the eye-catching nature of advertisements. The canvas mimics the character’s squarish head shape while contributing to the work’s explosive multidimensionality. The confines of the canvas strive to contain the cartoon’s larger-than-life presence. KAWS zooms closely into the character’s face, so some details on its contours are not visible – one could imagine that they exist in the surrounding space, outside of the canvas’s physical borders. Although KAWS chose a one-dimensional paint texture reminiscent of commercial fabrication, his arresting color palette and pronounced, graphic lines add depth to the work.

The character’s facial expression is equally dramatic, as its mouth is agape, revealing a dark red hue that offsets the beaming yellow. The cartoon’s typical smile is nowhere to be found. Instead, this character is depicted in deep shock, which in turn generates a shock factor for the viewer: KAWS boldly deviates from the character’s trademark joie de vivre. Its ice blue eyes are embellished with KAWS’s iconic ‘X’ symbol, a technique known as “subvertising.” He initially devised this signature detail in his work as a graffiti artist, using the ‘X’ to modify commercial images, often billboards or out-of-home advertisements in cities worldwide. The ‘X’ smoothly fits into the initial imagery; it seems to be an original part of the image, rather than a later addition. The uniform paint texture helps seamlessly integrate KAWS’s addition into the subject’s face. The ‘X’ symbols appear to be inscribed in the character’s eyes; they are painted overtop in a slightly darker blue, which establishes a light distinction while still suggesting that their presence is not an afterthought. These signature ‘X’ eyes brand this work as KAWS’s while injecting an aura of emptiness into the subject’s face, which deepens its sinister expression.

HOT SEAT JUNCTION, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
HKD 8,559,000 / USD 1,100,439

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 23 December 2022 | Phillips

In HOT SEAT JUNCTION, KAWS succeeds in emphasizing the magnitude of emotion captured through the repetitive nature of the panels. By starting with the character’s face as his reference point (the largest reproduction of which serves as his central panel), KAWS deconstructs the figure and isolates parts of the whole to place emphasis on the eyes and mouth within the exterior panels, forcing us to behold these vignettes essentially as abstractions of an already abstracted form, thus complicating our narrative reading of the scene, and compelling us to imbue the work with our own suppositions.

THE WAY HE KNOWS, 2010

Phillips New-York: 17 November 2021
Estimated: USD 850,000 – 1,000,000
USD 1,542,500

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 23 November 2021 | Phillips

Painted in 2010, KAWS’s THE WAY HE KNOWS is a key example of the artist’s ability to exude complex emotion through nostalgic imagery. Cropping in on the immediately recognizable cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, KAWS brings this character into his unique vernacular with his signature crossed out eyes. Presented with an open mouth and clenched face, his figure is suffused with primal emotion. At approximately seven feet tall, SpongeBob’s iconic yellow visage is expanded to larger-than-life proportions, amplifying its emotional impact to the viewer.

Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman’s Head with Handkerchief [III], Postscript of “Guernica”, 1937. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Image: Album/Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In the early 2000s, the artist began to reappropriate iconic cartoon characters from the last half century in his painterly practice, making these universal characters his own by voiding them of their original narrative context. The artist notably illustrates the familiar faces of cartoon cultural icons such as Snoopy, SpongeBob, Smurfs, The Simpsons, Sesame Street, and Mickey Mouse. Evoking a unique sense of nostalgia, his iconography recalls the purity of childhood memories while conflicting with the complexities of contemporary life.

Created by marine science educator Stephen Hillenburg in the late 1990s, SpongeBob SquarePants is the highest rated series to ever air on the children’s American cartoon network, Nickelodeon. With more than 275 episodes spanning over two decades, SpongeBob SquarePants has become a household name adorning television screens in more than 200 countries. Despite being a common theme in the artist’s body of work, KAWS admits, “SpongeBob was something I wanted to do because graphically I love the shapes. But honestly, when I’m painting SpongeBob, I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, I loved this episode.’ Honestly, I’ve never even watched it.”ⁱ

KAWS’s multidisciplinary practice which incorporates painting, sculpture, and print-making, has caught the attention of collectors worldwide. As his fine art practice continues to reach new heights, the artist has shown commitment to remaining accessible by collaborating with global fashion brands including Dior, Nike, and Uniqlo. His practice has been honored with numerous solo shows around the globe, including a 2011 solo exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT, where the present work was on view. The artist also received a retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2019-2020) and most recently, the highly acclaimed major survey at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2021. His works are cemented within the permanent collections of international institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas, the CAC Malaga in Spain, and the Rosenblum Collection in Paris.

KAWSBOB, 2008

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 20 April 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 422,105

KAWS | KAWSBOB | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b.1974)
KAWSBOB, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
20×16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated KAWS.08 on the reverse

“As far as SpongeBob… I would never have imagined that it would make its way into so many works, but, just aesthetically, I was taken by the forms. And as I investigated it more I realized all these similarities between SpongeBob and tons of other earlier cartoons from the thirties and forties, up to the present. I like the way common eyes and noses can exist through different formats and how just a dominant color change or some other sort of shirt will completely identify existing forms with a new cartoon. So I think that’s why you see SpongeBob and it instantly feels familiar. It’s sort of a combination of many things you grew up on.”

The Walk Home, 2012

Phillips New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 5,955,000

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art E… Lot 17 May 2019 | Phillips

KAWS
The Walk Home, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
173 x 219.1 cm (68 1/8 x 86 1/4 inches)
Signed, titled and dated “KAWS..12 THE WALK HOME..” on the reverse

THE WALK HOME is a quintessential example of the artist’s ability to communicate complex human emotion through reclaimed cartoon imagery. In the present work, KAWS depicts the ever‐popular animated character, SpongeBob SquarePants, using line and flat, evenly saturated colors in “an almost rubber-like matte finish”, similar to that of cartoons or toys. KAWS makes SpongeBob his own by obliterating the character’s eyes with his signature X-motifs. Presented on a scale akin to the grand tradition of history painting, KAWS captures the moment when SpongeBob, teetering on the heels of his bright red shoes, appears to be scared off his feet, his mouth agape in a shriek. Surrounding SpongeBob are over a dozen pairs of disembodied arms, echoing the protagonist’s own raised limbs. In their disembodiment, these fragmented forms serve as a precursor to KAWS’s more recent work where he strips cartoon visages of the salient features that convey emotion and reconstitutes those elements into an abstracted amalgamation. In THE WALK HOME, the catalyst of SpongeBob’s overwhelming anxiety is placed beyond the confines of the picture plane. The audible manifestation of the scene is conveyed in the repeated arms contained within the compositional frame, that ostensibly function like the physical action exclamations of cartoons like “POW!” or “BAM!”. This technique more aptly recalls a scene on infinite loop, one that never comes to narrative fruition, rather than a cartoon strip. In so doing, KAWS succeeds in emphasizing the magnitude of emotion captured in a single moment. By starting with the cartoon as his reference point, a genre characterized by short narratives, KAWS utilizes the televised series’ simplification for his greater goal. Combined with his deconstructive approach of isolating parts of the whole to comprise his seemingly familiar vignettes, KAWS complicates the viewer’s narrative reading of the scene and compels us to imbue the work with our own suppositions.

 

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CHUM

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UNTITLED (CHUM, HOUSTON STREET), 2000

Phillips New-York: 21 May 2026
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 350,000
PASSED

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art: Afternoon Session

Executed in 2000, UNTITLED (CHUM, HOUSTON STREET) is a rare surviving example of KAWS’s bus shelter interventions — the clandestine series that defined his early career and remains foundational to his practice today.  In the mid-1990s, KAWS began a series of “ad interventions,” in which he took existing advertisements on mylar and painted over them, obscuring models’ faces with cartoon-like skulls or wrapping them in coiling snakes. As his engagement with this guerilla act deepened, he began working with blank sheets of paper, creating original images from scratch before installing them into bus shelters. Featuring KAWS’ iconic CHUM character, this unique, hand-painted painting on paper captures the artist’s practice at one of the most generative and insurgent moments of his early career. This exceptional work belongs to that electrifying chapter of his practice and represents a singular evolution within it. Initially displayed in a bus shelter on New York’s Houston Street, bordering the SoHo neighborhood, it has been widely reproduced in an in situ photograph from the time, cementing its status as the most iconic example from this series.

The ad interventions were a natural extension of KAWS’s graffiti practice, which had begun earlier in the decade. A pivotal moment came in 1996, when during a stint in San Francisco, KAWS met fellow street artist Barry McGee, who supplied him with a tool used to open display cases, leading to his first bus shelter works (Germano Celant, KAWS 1993–2010, New York, 2010, p. 48). Begun from a blank sheet of paper, UNTITLED (CHUM, HOUSTON STREET) shows KAWS defining his artistic idiom while embracing compositional control. The work centers on CHUM, one of the artist’s most central and enduring characters alongside COMPANION and ACCOMPLICE. CHUM iterates on the highly recognizable Michelin Man, the character used in the French tiremaker’s advertisements since the late 19th century, and is reimagined with the artist’s signature “X” eyes. In the present example, the figure is rendered in close crop, the body pushed to near-abstraction, lending the composition a quality of spontaneity and surprise, as though CHUM were peering through a window or emerging unexpectedly.

Image/Artwork: © KAWS

The bold white lines set against a black ground carry a clear visual echo of Keith Haring’s subway drawings, in which the artist used white chalk on the black paper lining New York’s transit system to cover outdated advertisements. KAWS, working in the same city decades later, picks up this lineage, inserting art into the existing architecture of commercial display. Yet where Haring’s interventions carried an overt countercultural charge, KAWS’s impulse is perhaps more democratic than adversarial: rather than critiquing the spaces of advertising, he inhabits and reimagines them, folding art into the rhythms of everyday urban life. UNTITLED (CHUM, HOUSTON STREET) is a rare and important document of KAWS’s practice in dialogue with the city itself. It crystallizes the intersections across art, fashion and advertising that remain paramount in his work today — at once a museum-caliber artwork, and a record of a specific moment in New York’s art scene.

 

CHUM (KCA4), 2012

Bullishly sprinting towards the viewer, CHUM (KCA4) conveys strength and speed in a monochrome world, with pumping arms and a foreshortened fist, foot and knee threatening to break into the viewer’s reality. It is an image hinging on ubiquity, recognizable by its skeletal, clown-like appearance, its Mickey Mouse stylization, its bulky Michelin man identity. However, channeling its energy out towards the viewer in a straight, unflinching line, this character is at once recognizable and personal.

“I was looking at graffiti when I was younger and the impact it has on me is still strong…
People don’t realize that it is a world to collect from and gather information from.”

Earning a degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York, KAWS worked across animation and graffiti, and the trading of ‘black books’ enabled him to pass on his designs through copying and image reproduction, as they gained further transmutability. This sense of artistic transmission came to define his oeuvre, and CHUM is an example of constant reuse. Its adaptability enables it to be reproduced across media, across surface, in different sizes and color combinations. The collapsing of these boundaries is a recognized aspect of KAWS’s practice: ‘permutability makes it possible to pass from high to low, from elite to popular…from series to playful, from single to multiple’. Despite the visibility of graffiti, KAWS remains a very private artist – he is not recognized by his name, Brian Donnelly. Ironically in 2025, Esquire published an article entitled ‘Who Doesn’t Know KAWS?’, yet in reality, KAWS becomes defined by a brand or image, in this case CHUM, rather than a personal, individual, unique self.

Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie, 1928

Not only derivative of themes from popular culture, KAWS also chooses names for his works which are associated with friendship – CHUM, COMPANION, ACCOMPLICE. However, the irony continues upon viewing such a threatening image with its undercurrent of charging violence.  Whilst it appreciates mass production in the modern world, CHUM also utilizes trompe l’oeil through its foreshortening, combining modernity with artistic tradition. A key trope across KAWS’s artistic trajectory are the crossed-out eyes: ‘his X-eyed gang of creations’. Perhaps this is a comment on the image’s pervasive visibility in society today, or the clone-like individuals that make up humanity in KAWS’s eyes. Sprinting towards the viewer, carving out its passage with unwavering intent, the blindness contributes to the image’s unnerving forcefulness – the figure has no awareness of its surroundings, its movement is uncertain, and its path is not guaranteed.

“When I do stuff in a gallery, I don’t consider myself a contemporary artist. Hopefully people are at the point where they can let go of these sorts of labels.”

The great paradigm of CHUM is that it is at once recognizable yet personal. It is a comment on the transmutability of imagery, the speed at which art can be mass produced, reproduced and consumed by an eager public. It is an image that the viewer seems to be aware of, one they can relate to popular culture. However, they remain the personal, targeted opposition. Energy is directed outwards, and the viewer can only stand before KAWS’s figure and await its next moves.

 

CHUM (KCB2), 2012

Sotheby’s London: 5 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 500,000 – 700,000
GBP 508,000 / USD 650,240

CHUM (KCB2) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (KCB2), 2012
Acrylic on canvas mounted on panel
84×68 inches (213×172 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 12 (on the reverse)

Using the visual culture that surrounds him, Brian Donnelly, known as KAWS has established himself as one of the leading figures in a new iteration of Pop sensibility of the 21st Century. KAWS combines his characters with popular cartoons, mascots, and logos, creating a new visual language, and building upon a legacy of artists who famously questioned the consumerist tendencies of modern society. Whilst studying illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, KAWS entrenched himself in the rebellious New York Graffiti counterculture. His iconic “KAWS” tag became a symbol seen throughout Jersey City and his bold and iconic graffiti would go on to shape much of his artistic career. These public art interventions marked the beginning of KAWS’s exploration of themes related to consumerism and cultural iconography. In the early 1990s, KAWS started to parody and subvert corporate and political advertisements, often on bus shelters and billboards. As his practice expanded beyond graffiti, KAWS began appropriating recognizable cartoon characters from popular culture, creating his own cast of characters, one of the most iconic of which is CHUM.

CHUM (KCB2) was born from the iconic Michelin Man image, internationally recognised as the mascot of the Michelin tire company. The present work perfectly demonstrates KAWS’s meticulous handling of paint, with smooth, uniform planes of vibrant blue. These controlled lines and fluidity of colour seem to give the rounded figure a sense of movement as if he were striding toward the viewer from the wall. KAWS blends familiar cultural icons with his own unique style, he crafts a new visual dialogue that reflects both the era’s mass media landscape and his unique artistic evolution. CHUM (KCB2), with its ties to the Michelin Man, exemplifies this fusion of nostalgia and innovation, inviting viewers to engage with familiar imagery in a deeply emotional way. The exaggerated masculinity of the figure, as the artist describes, allows the viewer to “compare body postures and assertiveness–or lack of it–in front of a CHUM… we are using it as an excuse to see ourselves…If, for the Pop artists of the 1960s, the premise was, ‘You are what you buy,’ for KAWS it would be, ‘You are what you see.'” (Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, “KAWS: SEEING YOU SEEING YOURSELF,” KAWS, New York 2010, p.133). In infiltrating the worlds of mass consumerism and popular culture, KAWS’s work constitutes a new paradigm in art history in which his work functions less as a commentary on consumer culture, but as a continuous enactment of the complex role of art and popular media in everyday lives within capitalist culture.

Philibert Gilbert, Advertisement for Michelin, c. 1935
Images/Artwork: © Bridgeman Images

KAWS forces the viewer to reconsider their relationship with the symbols that shape modern culture. CHUM (KCB2) is a testament to this ideology. By reimagining this well-known character, he transforms him and gives him new meaning. His work not only disrupts the simplicity of consumer-driven imagery but also encourages deeper reflection on how these images shape our identities. Through this dynamic interplay, KAWS establishes a powerful, innovative language that resonates with the complexities of 21st century art.

CHUM (Black), 2009

Sotheby’s London: 10 October 2024
GBP 100,000 – 150,000
GBP 84,000 / USD 109,760

CHUM (Black) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (Black), 2009
Painted bronze
20 1/2 x 13 x 6 inches (52.5 x 33 x 15.2 cm)
Incised with the artist’s signature and numbered 3/3 (on the underside of the left foot)
This work is number 3 from an edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof

CHUM (Black) is a striking example of KAWS’s unique visual language and the bold adoption of Pop sentimentality, which has positioned him at the forefront of the 21st-century Pop movement. A hybrid of the iconic Michelin Man and KAWS’s signature ‘X’-eyed skull head, Chum is amongst the most emblematic characters of the artist’s oeuvre. Inspired by familiar characters from cartoons, logos, and mascots from popular culture, KAWS’s playful creations poignantly examine contemporary visual culture in today’s mass consumerist society.

Following his graduation from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1996, KAWS, as a young graffiti artist, began to parody and subvert corporate and political advertisements on the side of bus shelters and billboards. Gradually, he began expanding his imagery to appropriate recognizable cartoon figures to invent his own host of characters, Chum being one of the most iconic. The first Chum was released in 2002, its name carrying the definition “a close friend or pal”. Its disproportionately puffed chest and hyper-masculine pose evokes a juvenile childishness that is at once inviting and familiar, evoking the form of the stacked-tire figure Michelin Man, created as a mascot in the late 19th century for the Michelin tyre company. Drawing on the art historical tradition of restyling and appropriating images by Pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, KAWS transforms an image that exists in the public consciousness into an icon within his own oeuvre that is at once distinctively recognizable and uniquely KAWS.

In CHUM (Black), KAWS disguises the heaviness of the bronze medium through an even, glossy black surface, achieving a plastic-like appearance that resembles a toy or figurine. In discussing the choice of his medium, KAWS explains: “I am interested in bronze because there’s a long lineage of bronze in art history (and the permanence of it). Even though they are made of this significant material, I try to make the surface of my sculptures look like the plastic toys I make because I want to push back against this perception that because something is plastic, somehow it’s not art; like it’s a product or something. And if something is bronze, suddenly it’s ‘elevated’. I want to wash those distinctions away” (the artist quoted in: Matthew Rolfe, “In conversation with KAWS,” Foyer, 26 October 2023, online). Indeed, collapsing the art historical distinctions and hierarchy between art and non-art, KAWS has successfully infiltrated the worlds of mass consumerism and popular culture, constituting a new paradigm in which his works are not only commentary on consumer culture, but a continuous enactment of the complex role of art and popular media in everyday lives.

A creative entrepreneur, KAWS not only reflects the state of contemporary visual culture, but exists as an active part of the world of contemporary art and culture. Blurring the categories of art and product, KAWS explained: “I think they didn’t understand that it’s not like I make these toys for the money. The toys are actually part of the work. It’s what I want to do. No matter how things go in the gallery world, I’m still going to want to make product” (KAWS quoted in: Tobey Maguire, “KAWS: An Interview,” Yang Gallery, online). Perhaps drawing on his previous career as a Disney illustrator and the wildly popular franchise of its animated characters, KAWS’s creations are not simply a commentary on mass consumerist culture, but also permeate and reenact the consumerist cycle, appearing as limited-edition figurines and in streetwear collaborations. While simultaneously investigating the effects of advertisements and consumerism on society at large, the artist makes nods to those that came before, like Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Takashi Murakami. Transitioning from near-anonymous street art to gallery exhibitions and branded apparel, KAWS has established an upward trajectory that has a complex relationship to his origins and the critique of popular culture. Epitomizing KAWS’s brilliant ability to blur the boundary between art and consumer culture, CHUM (Black) is a powerful statement on the evolving nature of contemporary visual art.

CHUM (KCO18), 2016

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 7 October 2022
Estimated: HKD 4,500,000 – 6,500,000
HKD 5,670,000 / USD 722,247

KAWS | CHUM (KCO18) | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
CHUM (KCO18), 2016
Acrylic on canvas mounted on panel
60×49 inches (153 x 135.3 cm)
Signed and dated 16 on the reverse

Inspired by and commenting on contemporary society overwhelmed and inundated by an abundance of images, advertisements and cartoons, KAWS has established himself as a leading proponent of a new iteration of Pop sensibility in the 21st century. Chum is a prime example of the artist’s striking visual language and bold adoption of styles and imagery associated with Pop Art. After graduating from studying illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the artist began to use the tag KAWS as a young graffiti artist in Jersey City, a bold and iconographic practise which has gone on to influence much of his oeuvre. It was in the early 1990s that KAWS began to parody and subvert corporate and political advertisements on the side of bus shelters and billboards. Gradually expanding his imagery beyond graffiti, KAWS would appropriate recognizable cartoon figures from popular culture to invent his own host of characters, one of the most emblematic and recognizable of which is CHUM. Extending the art historical tradition of restyling images by pop artists like Roy Lichtenstein, KAWS’s figures’ heads are frequently embed with disturbing or jarring elements, such as the characteristic crosses for eyes seen in Chum. It is through these figure heads that KAWS has established himself as a creative entrepreneur in the vein of Andy Warhol and Takashi Murakami, infiltrating the realm of mass consumerism with his limited-edition figurines and streetwear collaborations, carving out a truly distinctive visual lexicon that permeates the world of contemporary art and popular culture. His indebtedness to artists like Keith Haring, whose Pop Show was reappropriated by KAWS’s own shop OriginalFake, is clear, yet the artist’s meticulous craft, which combines elements of high design and the aesthetics of street art, imbues his work with a distinctive character.

Foregoing art’s tradition anti-commercial idealism, Chum epitomizes the artist’s playful and dynamic examination of mainstream visual culture. The cartoon subject, which bears a resemblance to the iconic Michelin Man, is marked with KAWS’s signature ‘X’ eyes, which originate from KAWS’s time tagging branded posters throughout New York City. Demonstrating KAWS’s meticulous handling of paint, the controlled lines and fluidity of color seen in the present work imbue the rotund CHUM figure with a sense of movement, as if he were striding toward the viewer from the wall. The smooth, uniform plane of black rendered in a deep matte shade are cut through by KAWS’s determined lines of white, rendering the figure even more exaggerated despite the muted palette.

 

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UNTITLED, 1997

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 250,000 – 350,000
HKD 533,400

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Ar… Lot 148 March 2023 | Phillips

KAWS is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative artists of our day. He is renowned for his achievements as an artist, collector, designer, and entrepreneur, and has established a name for himself in each of these fields. UNTITLED encapsulates the meticulous focus on detail and creative ingenuity for which KAWS is best known, showcasing the artist’s clean graphic style which originates from his involvement with the street-art subcultures of New York in the 1990s. Executed in 1997, the present work is an early example of KAWS’s reworked advertisements, featuring an iconic KAWS character with a skull head and X-ed out eyes, who curls their way around a posing model set against a photo-studio backdrop. For his early advertisement works, KAWS would pry open bus shelter and billboard displays across New York and San Francisco, using a tool he had been gifted by his friend and fellow artist, Barry McGee. Taking home the advertisement posters, KAWS would deliberate over their compositions before painting on his signature tag of the X-ed out eyes subject who embodies the artist’s alter ego. He would then return the reworked adverts back to either the same or different display cases across the cities. As his modifications were executed with such a meticulous hand, it would leave viewers questioning whether the advertisements had indeed been tampered with, or if they were actually looking at the originally intended imagery.

As showcased by the present work, KAWS would employ his signature crossed bones and X-ed out eyes—motifs that remain the trademark of his oeuvre to this day—to create tensions between the original and the appropriated and call into question the notions of mass consumption and the discourse between ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of art. In doing so, his witty and sarcastic engagement with visual culture resulted in works that are both humorous and thought-provoking and have taken the luxury and collectibles markets by storm.

UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), 1999

Phillips Hong-Kong: 21 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
HKD 1,008,000 / USD 128,405

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 228 June 2022 | Phillips

“When you paint over ads, it clicks […] There were Calvin Klein ads of Kate Moss or Christy Turlington. I think that’s when I realised it was more about communication; there was a dialogue.”

Having established a name for himself as an artist, collector, designer, and entrepreneur, KAWS is widely revered as one of the most iconic and prolific creators of our generation. The present work, UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN), perfectly exemplifies the meticulous attention to detail and creative ingenuity for which he is best known, showcasing the artist’s clean graphic style that stems from his engagement with the street-art subcultures of New York in the 1990s. Before KAWS dominated the art world with his parodic compositions of pop culture characters and larger-than-life public installations, KAWS developed his now instantly recognizable aesthetic tagging advertising posters on the streets of San Francisco and New York. Employing his signature crossed bones and X-ed out eyes—motifs that remain the trademark of his oeuvre to this day—he called into question the notions of mass consumption and the discourse between “high” and “low” forms of art.

KAWS, UNTITLED (CALVIN KLEIN)  reworked poster at a New York bus shelter, 1999 

“I would walk up and ask people to move out of the way, ‘excuse me’ and no-one said anything, people thought it was my job… I would [replace all the posters] of Houston Street in one night.”

For his early reworked advertisement works, KAWS would pry out the lock of a bus shelter or billboard display hoarding with the help of a locksmith who cut him a set of master keys, affording KAWS with the ability to effortlessly access most of the city’s advertising cabinets. Freed from the looming threat of being caught, KAWS easily removed posters in broad daylight, taking them home in batches to deliberate and labor over, only returning them once they were all immaculately rendered to his liking. These reinterpreted posters effectively blurred the lines between the original and the intervention, leaving the public to wonder whether the advertisements had been vandalized or reworked as part of a marketing campaign, or if the modified versions were in fact the originally intended and placed imagery. From a small, limited edition of 5 silkscreens on paper, the present work features American model Christy Turlington posing for Calvin Klein, disrupted by KAWS’s iconic X-ed eyed protagonist. Here, KAWS inserts his character into the image as if taking on a serpentine form, coiling around Turlington’s body like a snake and peeking at the viewer from behind her shoulder. The image was first rendered by KAWS over a Calvin Klein advertisement published in 1999, that was placed within a bus-shelter advertisement display cabinet.

UNTITLED (US), 2002

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 11,745,000 / USD 1,505,923

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 257 November 2021 | Phillips

To understand the work of KAWS is to understand his roots in the skateboard and graffiti crews of New York City. Brian Donnelly chose KAWS as his moniker to tag city streets beginning in the 1990s, and quickly became a celebrated standout in the scene. Having swapped spray paint for explorations in fine art spanning sculpture, painting and collage, KAWS has maintained a fascination with classic cartoons, including Garfield, SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons, and reconfigured familiar subjects into a world of fantasy. Perhaps he is most known for his larger-than-life fiberglass sculptures that supplant the body of Mickey Mouse onto KAWS’ own imagined creatures, often with ‘x’-ed out eyes or ultra-animated features. However, KAWS also works frequently in neon and vivid paint, adding animation and depth to contemporary paintings filled with approachable imagination. There is mass appeal to KAWS, who exhibits globally and most frequently in Asia, Europe and the United States.

UNTITLED (C3PO), 2000

Phillips London: 13 July 2021
Estimated: GBP 250,000 – 350,000
GBP 352,800 / USD 488,620

KAWS – New Now London Lot 10 July 2021 | Phillips

A cartoon-like skull, each eye socket marked with an X, is painted atop the robotic torso of the android C-3PO, an iconic character from the Star Wars franchise. The two crossed bones and ‘X’ eyes reimagine the universal symbol of the skull using the unmistakable iconography of Brooklyn-based artist, KAWS. The simplification of the cartoon face, executed using bold lines and solid planes of monotone color, render the expression of the character ambiguous. The cheerful escapism associated with children’s cartoons and Hollywood action movies, such as Star Wars, is juxtaposed with a darker subtext: ‘When I first did the skull with the crossed eyes I was thinking of the history of the cross-eyed characters in animation… how it implies being drunk or dead’. Half-android, half-cartoon, the hybrid figure in KAWS’s Untitled (C3PO) exemplifies the artist’s appropriation of familiar characters taken from popular culture to explore ideas about mass communication, commercialization and artistic expression.

“I use the X the same way that Mercedes uses the grille on their cars… You see them in the rearview mirror and just have a glimpse of it, and you know the style of the car going behind you.”

Born in New Jersey in 1974, KAWS’s interest in art was shaped by his engagement with skateboarding and graffiti subcultures. Upon graduating from the New York School of Visual Arts in 1996, he worked as an animator for Jumbo Pictures. It was during this period that he developed his trademark iconography through interventions on urban surfaces. Taking advertising posters found at bus stops on the streets of New York City, he painted skulls with crossed bones and ‘X’ eyes over the faces of the models promoting luxury fashion brands. His interest in appropriating existing iconography to confront the viewer with the familiar, made strange, soon prompted him to revisit well-known characters from popular culture including his own version of The Simpsons (dubbed the Kimpsons), Disney’s Mickey Mouse (Companion) and, as seen in the present work, Hollywood films including Star Wars. Seeking to break down ideological hierarchies of high- and low-art to widen access to his work, KAWS gives his characters life through a variety of mediums including streetwear, limited-edition toys, large-scale sculptures and original paintings on canvas. While KAWS’s witty engagement with visual culture asserts his reputation as a distinctly contemporary artist, his appropriation of existing images (particularly those associated with the commercial) resonates with the project of Andy Warhol and the American Pop Art movement. In turn, the development of his distinctive iconography through street art recalls the artmaking practices of Jean-Michel Basquiat, their shared integration of the skull into their visual vocabulary further cementing the resonances between the two artists’ work. Yet, despite such art historical precedents, KAWS’s unique configuration of references from popular culture united with his distinctive imagery to establish his position as a truly international figure at the forefront of the art world today.

UNTITLED (STORMTROOPER), 2000

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 1,600,000 – 2,600,000
HKD 6,300,000 / USD 811,939

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 133 June 2021 | Phillips

UNTITLED (US), 1997

Bonhams London: 27 April 2021
Estimated: GBP 60,000 – 80,000
GBP 375,250 / USD 521,710

Bonhams : KAWS (B. 1974) UNTITLED (US) 1997

 

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THE KIMPSONS

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The Kaws Album, 2005

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
Estimated: HKD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
HKD 115,966,000 / USD 14,773,492

(#8) KAWS | THE KAWS ALBUM (sothebys.com)

KAWS
THE KAWS ALBUM, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
40×40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 05 on the reverse

Released in 1967, The Beatles’ era-defining Sgt. Pepper album was lauded by critics for its bridging of popular music, high art and contemporary counterculture. THE KAWS ALBUM follows in its legendary footsteps in its bold straddling and uniting of genres, cultures and subcultures. Exemplifying KAWS’s formal agility as an artist, the piece is the most accomplished work on canvas the KAWS ever created. Commissioned by NIGO® in 2005, THE KAWS ALBUM is an appropriation of an appropriation – KAWS’s take on The Simpson’s The Yellow Album, which was itself a parody of The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In this historical ‘family portrait’, KAWS includes the whole host of his Kimpsons characters with their trademark sprouting puffy crossbones and X’ed eyes.

Untitled (Kimpsons #1), 2004

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 October 2019
Estimated: HKD 48,000,000 – 68,000,000
HKD 57,877,000 / USD 7,382,553

(#1136) KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #1) (sothebys.com)

KAWS
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #1), 2004
Acrylic on canvas
108×96 inches (274.5 x 244 cm)

Captured in mid-air, suspended at the apex of their projectile trajectory, the KIMPSON family flails with a comic helplessness amplified by their X-ed out eyes, a signature of the artist. The impact is unknown. No context is given. What is at stake is simply the instantly recognizable cartoon silhouettes and the iconic flash of yellow. UNTITLED (KIMPSONS #1) is the largest work amongst KAWS’s (a.k.a. Brian Donnelly’s) iconic KIMPSONS paintings. Commissioned by NIGO® in 2004 and created at a critical juncture of the artist’s career, the KIMPSONS works were the first formal paintings on canvas created by KAWS. Painted by hand with Chromacolour paint, a unique acrylic pigment primarily used by animators, these KIMPSONS paintings manifest as the quintessence of the artist’s anarchic painterly enterprise.

 

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KURF

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THIS IS THE WAY, 2014

Phillips London: 3 March 2022
Estimated: GBP 600,000 – 800,000
GBP 796,900 / USD 1,066,345

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 42 March 2022 | Phillips

Larger than life and dominated by vibrantly saturated colour, KAWS’ monumental work THIS IS THE WAY  beautifully synthesises the artist’s unique blending of art history, pop culture, and contemporary iconography. Over a career spanning 25 years, KAWS has become known for his playful reinterpretation of instantly recognizable characters in 20th and 21st century visual culture, including The Smurfs, The Simpsons, and more recently, SpongeBob SquarePants. Formerly an animator at Disney, Brian Donnelly first chose ‘KAWS’ as his moniker to tag city streets in the 1990s, and quickly became a celebrated standout in the scene. KAWS’ ability to re-examine and manipulate familiar images and characters has created a universally appealing body of work, which is currently being celebrated with a major exhibition blending physical and virtual works together for the first time at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

In the present work, KAWS juxtaposes snippets and fragments from his cast of appropriated characters, fusing them into a singularly specific reinterpretation of the original source material. This collision of familiar cartoons is simultaneously recognisable and jarringly unfamiliar. The central figure’s silhouette evokes the shapes of Garfield and Odie, two beloved animals from the American comic strip originally published in the late 1970s. Cartoon characterises abound: from the simplified triangular cat ears to the odd but universally accepted cartoon trope of a four-fingered hand, one gesturing outwards while the other rests jauntily on Garfield’s hip in the character’s characteristically sassy stance. Garfield’s sidekick Odie appears in the L-shaped snout-like protrusion to the lower left, the outline of which also evokes the profile of the beloved muppet, Gonzo. ‘The Great Gonzo’ product of Jim Henson’s broad imagination, is best known in the series for his eccentricity as well as the ambiguity of his character, a quality that KAWS cleverly fuses into his central figure. Upon closer examination, Odie’s ears resolve into Gonzo’s nose which then emerges as Squidward, the cantankerous cephalopod of SpongeBob SquarePants fame. As has become his trademark, KAWS replaces the character’s eyes with large crosses, imparting a sinister and layered depth to otherwise vapid characters. These ‘X’ eyes appear both in the distorted visage of Squidward that has been superimposed on the lower half of the figure, as well as the partially covered KURF – KAWS’ reimagination of The Smurfs. The rich blue body adorned with the little white hat – usually identified as a Smurf – has become so appropriated by the artist as to become a trademark image.

Uncanny and ominous in equal measure, THIS IS THE WAY  presents a wealth of cultural references that highlights the depth of KAWS’ engagement with the legacies of Pop Art. Heir to the likes of Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Ed Ruscha, KAWS presents his audience with imagery that, although recognisable, becomes unfamiliar. In this way KAWS is able to masterfully tip the balance between the innocence and play typically associated with childhood cartoons, and a distinctive sense of unease. The fragmented bodies recall such influences as disparate as the Surrealists’ beloved game ‘Exquisite Corpse’ and Jean Dubuffet’s snipped and collaged works from the 1960s and 1970s; indeed, the quotation and cutting of various figures in Dubuffet’s L’hourloupe series directly prefigures the collision of cartoons in THIS IS THE WAY . Germano Celant writes, ‘By giving the comics a new face, the artist seems to aspire to update their past, which is not simply playful and lyrical, but can also be frightening and deathly. Hence the masks with “sewn” eyes that do not look ahead but inside at their own stories.’

Jean Dubuffet, Untitled, 1963, Private Collection. Image: © Peter Willi / Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022

Commanding in scale and arresting in its vibrant tonality and universally legible pictorial content, THIS IS THE WAY  successfully dissolves the purported distinctions between fine art and mass media, culture both high and low, and exemplifies the highly accessible art for which KAWS has become best known. Furthermore, by collapsing the space between the art historical canon and contemporary culture, the present work exemplifies Michael Auping’s observation that ‘KAWS is not just referring to pop culture, he is making it.’ The title itself seems to conform to this reading, speaking to the future KAWS sees for his own practice, as well as the unknown directions in which art, pop culture, and the saturation of visual media will take us in the future. Forming part of KAWS’ shrewdly referential iconographic repertoire, THIS IS THE WAY typifies the visual vocabulary with which the artist has solidified his position as a preeminent figure of neo-Pop, alongside such artists as Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami.

KURF (CLUTCH), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2009

Phillips Hong-Kong: 21 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,200,000 – 2,200,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 240,770

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 107 June 2022 | Phillips

“When I was younger, I wasn’t going to galleries, I wasn’t going to museums … There was a lot of ‘this is fine art’ or ‘this is not fine art’; ‘this is commercial’, ‘this is high art’. In my mind I thought, art’s purpose is to communicate and reach people. Whichever outlet that’s being done through is the right one.”

Originating from the skateboard and graffiti culture of New York City in the 1990s, KAWS has since established himself as a pop culture phenomenon. By reimagining the timeless appearances of well-loved characters, KAWS employs the potency of classic cartoons to recall childhood memories and nostalgia, simultaneously calling into question the relevance of originality and brand imagery in contemporary art.

The present work (on the right) exhibited at Los Angeles, Honor Fraser, KAWS: THE LONG WAY HOME, 21 February – 4 April 2009
Image Courtesy of Honor Fraser 

First shown at KAWS’s solo show at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles in 2009, KURF (PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES) is a playful twist on the Smurfs cartoon, created by Belgian comics artist Peyo. In bright, bold acrylics, KAWS reimagines the little blue creature with the artist’s signature skull-like head marked with X-ed out eyes, as if he has just drunk from a vial of poison. Held in a tight, knuckle-gripping tight clutch of a hand, though the work invites viewers to reminiscence on childhood innocence, it is simultaneously tinged with a more sinister-twist.

Drawing inspiration from Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, who appropriated mass-culture imagery, and Roy Lichtenstein, whose work emulated comic-strip illustrations, KAWS too, replicates popular icons to evoke a sense of familiarity and, at the same time, prompts viewers to reflect on complex discussions regarding consumerist behavior and interpretations of modern art.  This is further emphasized by the canvas being contained within a blister packaging with printed backing card, as the materiality of the work mimics that of children’s toy manufacturers, cleverly bridging the opposing worlds of merchandise and fine art by merging their incongruent materials.

IN THE WOODS, 2002

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 3,855,000

KAWS (b. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
IN THE WOODS, 2002
Acrylic on canvas over panel, in three parts
Overall: 58 1/8 x 108 3/8 inches (147.6 x 275.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘KAWS..02 “IN THE WOODS”‘ (on the reverse of the left panel)

The iconic character of Snow White has captivated the hearts of generations, renowned for the beauty, purity, and innocence that her name suggests. In 1937, Disney chose the original, nineteenth-century fairytale written by the Grimm Brothers as the first that it would transform into a feature-length animated film. Reclaimed in the twenty-first century by the Brooklyn-based artist KAWS, Snow White’s innocence is transformed into an acerbic critique within IN THE WOODS (2002). An approximation of a scene from the Disney classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been reduced to a dense black palette with crisp white outlines, offset by a whimsical sky-blue background. In the original scene, Snow White is comforted by a league of woodland animals that transform her tears into “A Smile and a Song.” In KAWS’s version, the title character instead holds up a chipmunk to her face, and not a bluebird, while an array of bunnies, deer, and others gather around her, entranced by her beauty. However, stripped of color, with her eyes crossed out in the artist’s signature X-marks style and her hair modified to the famed cross-bone design, KAWS’ interpretation takes on the sinister undertones that are at the core of his practice of appropriation, in which classic cartoon and comic book icons are repurposed to explore the visual language within popular culture, and the role it plays in society.

KURF (HOT DOG), 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 May 2019
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 2,660,000

(#58) KAWS | KURF (HOT DOG) (sothebys.com)

KAWS
KURF (HOT DOG), 2008
Acrylic on canvas
68×68 inches (172.7 x 172.7 cm)
Signed and dated 08 on the reverse

Engaging and enigmatic in equal measure, KURF (HOT DOG) epitomizes the playful dynamism and sophisticated manipulation of familiar imagery that distinguishes the acclaimed output of KAWS. Composed of vibrantly saturated colors and boldly defined forms, the present work exemplifies the artist’s continuing investigation and engagement with the legacy of Pop culture, as articulated through his signature style. In KURF (HOT DOG), KAWS outfits his figure in the guise of a ‘Smurf,’ the humorous woodland character familiar from innumerable comics and toys of childhood; marked by the artist’s signature ‘X’ eyes, a sinister and fascinating hallmark of his practice, this inscrutable animation is gradually revealed to be an iconic figure from KAWS’ visual lexicon. Amongst the foremost heirs to the Pop legacy of such artists as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg, KAWS has risen to acclaim in recent years for the shrewd examination of mainstream visual culture embodied within his distinctive oeuvre. Infiltrating and appropriating the realms of consumerist and entertainment imagery, his paintings and sculptures examine the psychology of contemporary society through an intriguing cast of cartoon characters that, in their iconic familiarity and suggestion of mass-production, blur the boundary between commercial retail and the vanguard of Contemporary art. In KURF (HOT DOG), KAWS presents a figure both innocuous and acutely referential; drawing upon innumerable animated tropes, the character is immediately familiar to the viewer, situating us within a mainstream cultural narrative far more expansive than the whimsical scene before us. KAWS, who worked as an animator for Disney before establishing his artistic practice, cites mainstream cartoons as a central influence upon his oeuvre.

“I find it weird how infused a cartoon could become in people’s lives; the impact it could have, compared to regular politics.”

Similar to the impersonal portrayal of animated imagery upon a screen, KAWS deftly removes all trace of the artist’s hand, instead executing the clean lines and saturated colors of KURF (HOT DOG) with the exacting precision of commercial fabrication. This manner of execution originates in KAWS’ years as a graffiti artist, when he would modify billboards and other advertisements with such unerring skill that the additions would seamlessly integrate into the original imagery. Held within the figure’s bright blue hand, the elongated hot dog of the present work appears cartoonishly, even absurdly large, extending out beyond the crisp edge of the canvas. A quintessential food within the American visual lexicon, KAWS’ depiction of such an omnipresent consumer item invokes the legacy of American Pop art, continuing in the tradition of artists as storied as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons. As he rests atop a log, neatly nestled in a thicket of lush grass, the impish figure of KURF (HOT DOG) encapsulates the very best of the artist’s fascinating and pervasive oeuvre, keenly resisting all attempts at categorization while delivering striking commentary upon the visual culture of our day.

 

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Tondos

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UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips London: 7 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 180,000 – 250,000
GBP 165,100 / USD 211,328

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Day … Lot 121 March 2025 | Phillips

KAWS
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
Diameter: 96 inches (243.8 cm)
Signed and dated “KAWS..13” on the reverse

“Abstraction always interested me, probably because it relates to design, logos, and, in a very basic way, animation. Drawing itself is an abstract process until it becomes something recognizable.”

UNTITLED, 2018

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 500,000 – 700,000
HKD 504,000 / USD 64,573

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 132 November 2022 | Phillips

The present work (far left) exhibited at Tokyo, Perrotin, KAWS, 22 March – 12 May 2018. Image: Kei Okano, Artwork: © KAWS

GONE AND BEYOND A-2, 2012

Phillips New-York: 28 September 2022
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 107,100

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 27 September 2022 | Phillips

Painted in 2012, GONE AND BEYOND A-2 is a prime example of KAWS’ Pop-inspired practice that reinvigorates appropriated cartoon imagery in a fine art context. Belonging to an eponymous series of 27 tondo compositions begun in 2010, the present work presents a radically cropped perspective of one of the artist’s most iconic motifs, KAWSBOB. GONE AND BEYOND A-2 was created for and first featured in KAWS’ 2012 survey at the High Museum in Atlanta—the largest exhibition for the artist at that time.

Installation view of the present work (Atlanta, High Museum of Art, KAWS: DOWN TIME, February 18–July 29, 2012). Artwork: © KAWS 

“I just liked it. I had all these sculptural forms that were bulbous and round and I liked that it is never ending, there’s no corner, there’s no edge to it. And it gave me this play that the rectilinear canvases didn’t.”

In dramatic juxtaposition to the Renaissance style of tondo portraiture, frequently portraying religious imagery of Madonna, KAWS’ tondos feature similarly ubiquitous characters within contemporary media. In referencing iconic cartoon characters such as the Simpsons and SpongeBob, KAWS borrows the likeness of these figures and de-contextualizes their forms.  Inaugurated in 2008, KAWSBOB has emerged as one of KAWS’ favorite characters in his lexicon of mass media figures. KAWS’ choice of bright colors, animated imagery paired with a tilted and cropped perspective, highlights the influence graffiti and illustration has on his practice. As curator Michael Rooks observes, “by alluding to the imagery of such low-minded sources as comics and cartoons, KAWS bridges the divide between the common, every day.”

Tom Wesselmann, Mouth 7, 1966. Image: Tracey Whitefoot / Alamy Stock Photo
Artwork: © 2022 Estate of Tom Wesselmann / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York  

“For me it’s not abstract. I know where this image is coming from. I know every line where it is coming from. So I can’t not see that when I am forming an image. But yeah somebody walking into the room may not know that and it’s not important for them to understand the narrative to the [works].” 

Exemplifying KAWS’ myriad references to the methods of Pop art, most notably Tom Wesselmann’s Mouth series. Mouth 7, 1966, showcases the titular body part enlarged and engaged in an action or emotion unbeknownst to the viewer. KAWS at once appropriates his Pop art predecessors and establishes a new vocabulary that reflects the younger “generations who grew up in the era of cable television.” GONE AND BEYOND A-2 manifests the dynamic interplay between representation and abstraction that permeates KAWS’ practice, firmly rooted in art history.

UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips Hong-Kong: 22 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 3,500,000 – 4,500,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 417,340

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 32 June 2022 | Phillips

The large scale tondo format makes the work monumental, for example, another 96 inches KAWS tondo was exhibited in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2013. The work bulges out with a full front view of a pair of XX eyes against an adjacent 1920s-era Hamilton grand environment. This sets up a sharp contrast between a contemporary fashionable icon and a National historic landmark site, elevating this type of large scale tondos to the status of high art. The present lot UNTITLED encapsulates the artist’s idiosyncratic brand of Pop Art that bridges the worlds of art, popular culture and commerce.

THE GREAT BELOW, 2011

Phillips New-York: 28 September 2021
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 529,200

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 26 September 2021 | Phillips

The present work exemplifies the breadth of influences of KAWS’ daring multimedia practice: fusing the humor of Pop and the spartan refinement of Minimalism with a traditional form commonly used during the Renaissance, THE GREAT BELOW straddles street art, pop culture, the history of painting. THE GREAT BELOW assumes the form of the tondo, a type of circular canvas commonly used during the Italian Renaissance distinguished for its compositional difficulty. Long regarded as a challenging form to paint, the tondo has tested artists since the Cinquecento. Works that mastered the tondo, such as Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola, 1514, are distinguished for their deft harmonization of lifelike forms within the unnatural frame of the circular canvas.

KAWS has similarly achieved this effect by balancing swirling forms around the edges of the canvas. Focusing in on the features of KAWSBOB, one of his most iconic figures, KAWS abstracts the composition into a turbulent swirl of line and color, further distorted as the artist casts the composition in shocking, highly saturated tones of blue and red. By balancing the concentric circles within the round canvas, KAWS assures a high degree of formal accord. This effect, however, is both augmented and offset by the facial features of the eponymous deep-sea sponge, which imbue the work with a delicate abstract quality without undermining its formal harmony. THE GREAT BELOW is an impressive achievement for its balance of competing formal goals and influences; KAWS fuses abstraction and figuration, the contemporary and the anachronistic, and the harmonious and discordant to create a work that smirkingly sidesteps such distinctions.

UNTITLED, 2013

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 450,000 – 700,000
USD 604,800

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 377 June 2021 | Phillips

A quintessential example of his re-envisioned pop culture icons, KAWS’ Untitled, 2013 illustrates the inflated facial details of KAWSBOB, an intervention on the animated cartoon SpongeBob, imbued with the artist’s distinctive style. Through a build-up of pigment, KAWS is able to create evenly matte colors emulating that of an airbrush, an approach that can be recognized as an homage to his early days as a graffiti artist. His use of bold, blocks of color flattens the work, creating little differentiation between the foreground and background, while his application of pigment in tandem with the fragmented, mosaic-like, portions of the character conveys a distinctive sense of abstraction. As such, the piece demands active engagement to re-associate the represented features of the work with the character it represents.

Untitled, 2013 is also notable for the artist’s use of a circular shaped canvas, or tondo, a format the artist continues to explore in his practice today. The tondo’s Renaissance associations are particularly poignant here as the work was included in the artist’s solo exhibition in 2013 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), a historical landmark in Philadelphia. The KAWS @ PAFA exhibition juxtaposed the institution’s collection of 19th-century American art with KAWS’ playful pop-art creations. Respectful and aware of the historical importance of the venue and the tradition it represents, KAWS created a dialogue between the traditional narrative techniques of the oil paintings in the museum’s historic galleries and his fragmented, colorful cartoon imagery, resulting in a direct and visceral impact. Simultaneously paying homage to and mocking the established, formal tenets of art history, Untitled, 2013 is supremely representative of KAWS’ original mission to create universal content that encourages all to interact with and relate to his work.

 

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Package Painting Series

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It is hard to overstate the reach of KAWS (Brian Donnelly), an artist whose practice—like that of Andy Warhol before him—has come to define the intersection of art and commerce in the twenty-first century. From his beginnings as a graffiti artist subverting advertisements in New York to global collaborations with brands like Dior, Nike, and Supreme, KAWS has built a visual language that moves fluidly between high and low culture, fine art and mass media. The Package Paintings embody this dialogue at its most incisive. Rather than inventing new symbols, KAWS reimagines familiar pop cultural icons—cartoon figures and mascots—through a lens that merges painterly craft with commercial presentation. Drawing on the legacy of Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who each transformed the imagery of consumer life into high art, KAWS uses the shared language of mass culture to question how value, authorship, and originality are constructed.

“It was a way of bridging art, painting, and product culture. I wish you could walk around the package paintings, because the backside of the cards are printed. It’s die cut so that you can see the stretchers and the signature. It plays off all the same stuff that normal packaging does.”

Inspired by the collector mentality surrounding childhood toys and the refined connoisseurship he encountered in Japan, KAWS conceived the Package Paintings as meditations on the “ultimate collectible.” Each unique, hand-painted canvas is encased in a clear blister pack and mounted on a printed backing card derived from his signature skull motif. By framing a one-of-one artwork within the commercial packaging of a mass-produced toy, KAWS collapses the boundaries between the precious and the everyday. The result is a sharp and self-aware reflection on the systems of consumption and desire that define contemporary visual culture—a theme that has remained central to his work from graffiti wall to museum retrospective.

Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty), 2001

Rago: 12 November 2025
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 88,900

206: KAWS (BRIAN DONNELLY), Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty) (from the Package Painting Series) < Post War & Contemporary Art, 12 November 2025 < Auctions | Rago Auctions

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) b.1974
Untitled (Kimpsons) (Krusty), 2001
from the Package Painting Series
Acrylic on canvas in blister package
23 5/8 x 19 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches (60x49x8 cm)
Signed, dated and inscribed to verso ‘KAWS 01’

Kimpsons 13, 2001

Rago: 12 November 2025
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 63,500

208: KAWS (BRIAN DONNELLY), Kimpsons 13 (from the Package Painting Series (Homer)) < Post War & Contemporary Art, 12 November 2025 < Auctions | Rago Auctions

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) b.1974
Kimpsons 13, 2001
from the Package Painting Series (Homer)
Acrylic on canvas in blister package
23 1/2 x 19 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches (60x49x8 cm)
Signed, titled and dated to verso ‘KAWS Kimpsons 13 2001’

UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 9), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 6 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 1,651,000 / USD 210,836

KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 9), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES 無題（KIMPSONS 9），包裝畫系列 | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS 9), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas, in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 41×41 cm (16 1/8 x 16 1/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 2001 on the reverse

 

UNTITLED (CHUM), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Christie’s New-York: 29 September 2023
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 88,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
23 1/2 x 19 inches (59.7 x 48.3 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,,01’ (on the reverse)

KAWS (B.1974)
KAWSBOB (IT TOOK FIVE MINUTES), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2010
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
18x15x3 inches (45.7 x 38.1 x 7.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS ,,10’ (on the reverse)

UNTITLED (CHUM), 2001
from PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 2 December 2021
Estimated: HKD 600,000 – 800,000
HKD 1,375,000 / USD 176,431

KAWS (B.1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B.1974)
UNTITLED (CHUM), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Package: 23 1⁄2 x 19 inches (59.5 x 48.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS,, 01’ (on the reverse)

UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 20 September 2021
Estimated: HKD 240,000 – 450,000
HKD 441,000 / USD 56,640

Untitled (Original Fake Series) | 無題（Original Fake 系列） | Contemporary Showcase: Otaku Redux | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (ORIGINAL FAKE SERIES), 2002
Acrylic on canvas, in plastic bag with hang tag
Package: 9 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches (25×19 cm)
Canvas: 6×5 inches (15 x 12.5 cm)
Signed, dated 02 and stamped ORIGINAL FAKE 2002 on the reverse

In 2001, KAWS was invited to hold his first solo exhibition in Tokyo. Amongst a diverse range of works featured at the time was one of his best known series, the PACKAGE PAINTINGS. Each canvas from the series depicts the Kimpsons, Simpson characters appropriated with the stylised skull crossbones and ‘X’ eyes, and was presented in plastic blister package as if they are generic commercial products. They marked the artist’s first formal paintings applying acrylic on canvas.

‘The PACKAGE PAINTINGS were my way of getting my imagery on canvas. I had been painting nearly all my life, but not with these forms on this material.”

The series was a milestone in KAWS’s career bridging fine art and commercial goods, the two polar worlds the artist was traversing. The concept of using commercial packaging made to look like those used by toy manufacturers came about when the KAWS contemplated what defines a collector, a collectible, the habits and traits in collecting.

“People tend to think, “oh, collector,” and immediately they’re thinking art…and to see people fully absorbed in what they’re collecting in different fields with the same sort of integrity and the same sort of knowledge of where it’s come from, I was really fascinated. So I made that series of package paintings to kind of play off the idea of the ultimate collectible, the hand-painted piece, the one-of-one type of thing, but packaging it and distributing it in this sort of way that’s very mass and familiar.”

KAWS looked to the expertise of his friend Nigo for the production of the packages. Not only is Nigo a collaboration partner of KAWS in multiple collaborations associating with brands such as Bape, Medicom Toy, and Santastic!., but also one of the most important collectors of the KAWS’s works.

Spoken like any collector who understands the significance of original packagings and mint conditions for the ultimate collectibles, KAWS noted in an interview:

“…I’ve seen pictures of those canvases hung without them, and only somebody out of the loop would do that. To a younger kid, that’s sacrilege.”

The PACKAGE PAINTINGS soon expanded further, branching out into a series of smaller canvases with a different packaging style, as exemplified by the present lot. The umbrella term ORIGINAL FAKE categorizing these smaller works later lends its name to the renowned streetwear and collectible label KAWS established with Medicom Toy 2006-2013. The present work displays KAWS’s gradual palette diversification in monochromes, fluorescents, and pastels. The appropriation of images and mediums from mass culture recalls the modus operandi Andy Warhol began in 1962 with his silkscreened paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Mao.

 

UNTITLED (KIMPSONS) (Package Painting Series), 2001

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 18 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 2,520,000 / USD 324,640

KAWS | UNTITLED (KIMPSONS) (Package Painting Series) 無題（KIMPSONS）（包裝畫系列） | Contemporary Curated: Asia | JAY CHOU x SOTHEBY’S | Evening Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (KIMPSONS) (Package Painting Series), 2001
Acrylic on canvas in blister package with printed card
Canvas: 16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Blister package: 23 3/8 x 18 7/8 x 2 3/4 inches (59.3 x 48 x 7 cm)
Signed and dated 2001 on the reverse

Highly iconic, the present work was created during one of KAWS’ most important career milestones – the creation of his first acrylic paintings on canvases in 2001. Created for the artist’s first solo exhibition in Tokyo in the same year, the very special series featured KAWS’ KIMPSONS hybrid characters with his well-known iconography of X-ed out eyes and puffy crossbones.These first acrylic works, titled THE PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, mark an important milestone in KAWS’ career due to multiple reasons: not only were they his first canvas works; they were presented in the same kind of plastic blister packaging used by toy manufacturers. Intrigued when he saw Japanese men collecting toys, KAWS was inspired to replicate the mass-produced toy packaging for his canvases, subverting the conventional boundaries between art and mass production.

The present work is thus early evidence of KAWS’ subversive wit and prescient vision: his first official infiltration into the realm of ‘fine’ art was an orchestrated entrance that cleverly negotiated the parameters between painting and product, fine art and commerce, thereby uniting the genres, cultures and subcultures of our times.
These packaged paintings paved the way for KAWS’ larger pieces later in the 2000s, most noticeably, THE KAWS ALBUM which features the whole host of his KIMPSONS characters, which sold for HK$115.9 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April 2019.

UNTITLED (KIMPSONS), PACKAGE PAINTING SERIES, 2001

Phillips Hong-Kong: 7 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 1,890,000 / USD 243,575

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 132 June 2021 | Phillips

“The PACKAGE PAINTINGS were my way of getting my imagery onto canvas. I had been painting nearly all my life, but not with these forms on this material. After making them, I dropped the packaging and began to paint on larger canvases.” 

The PACKAGE PAINTINGS marked a pivotal point in KAWS’s career as it signaled his move from street art and design into the world of fine art, catapulting his work to worldwide fame. KAWS purposefully opted not to invent new symbols in his art, feeling that modern society was already inundated with a blitz of imagery. Instead, he chose to rework established, universally-recognized emblems. Drawing inspiration from Pop Artists such Andy Warhol who appropriated mass culture imagery (most notoriously Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell soup cans) and Roy Lichtenstein, whose work emulated the artistic style of comic book illustrations, KAWS skillfully utilized the public’s familiarity with popular visual culture to convey his artistic message.

Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962
Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

KAWS encased his canvas, featuring his take on The Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown modified with the signature ‘X’ eyes, in a blister pack together with triangular cutout for hanging merchandise on pegboards, and affixed it to a cardstock backing with modified character silhouettes derived from his trademark skulls and crossbones. The character is depicted in a freeze-action vignette, reminiscent of animation cells. By presenting his painted canvas in the same commercial packaging format used by toy manufacturers, KAWS bridged the opposing worlds of commerce and fine art by merging their incongruent materials.

 

 

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Skull Paintings

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KAWS’s skull paintings incorporate the artist’s signature cartoonish, pop art aesthetic while referencing themes of mortality, duality, and cultural saturation. The work subverts traditional notions of the macabre by blending the somber symbol of the skull with playful, vibrant elements. KAWS combine the universally recognizable, often unsettling symbol of the skull and crossbones with his signature cheerful, saturated colors and rounded forms. The striking colors the artist frequently uses for those works contrast forces a dialogue between life and death.

The skull paintings offer layers of meaning, challenging viewers to contemplate the deeper ideas behind the familiar and unsettling imagery. The skull is a classic memento mori, a reminder of death’s inevitability. KAWS’s use of the skull explores mortality and “the transience of experience”. By juxtaposing the skull with his playful cartoon aesthetic, he presents these heavy topics in a way that is inviting rather than frightening. Furthermore, the blending of dark and light elements—life and death, joy and sorrow—explores the duality of existence. The paintings invite viewers to look beyond the surface of familiar symbols and engage in introspection. The skull and crossbones are transformed from traditional signs of danger or poison into symbols for contemplating our own existence and the complexities of life.

UNTITLED, 1999

UNTITLED, 1996

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2023
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 63,500

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 370 November 2023 | Phillips

Untitled, 1997

Bonhams Hong-Kong: 3 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 550,000 – 750,000
HKD 696,000 / USD 89,349

Bonhams : KAWS (B. 1974) Untitled

UNTITLED, 1996

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 151,200

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 426 June 2021 | Phillips

UNTITLED, 1999

Phillips New-York: 24 June 2021
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 138,600

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art… Lot 425 June 2021 | Phillips

Untitled, 1999

Artcurial Paris: 5 July 2021
Estimated: EUR 50,000 – 70,000
EUR 78,000 / USD 92,550

Urban & Pop Contemporary | Artcurial

KAWS (b. 1974)
Untitled, 1999
Acrylic on canvas
16×16 inches (40.7 x 40.7 cm)
Signed and dated on the back

Untitled, 1999

Ravenel Taipei: 5 December 2021
Estimated: TWD 1,500,000 – 2,400,000
TWD 2,400,000 / USD 86,580

Ravenel | KAWS (Brian Donnelly)《Untitled》 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2021 Taipei Lot 249

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) (American, 1974)
Untitled, 1999
Acrylic on canvas
16×16 inches (41×41 cm)
Signed on the reverse KAWS’99

 

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Other Series

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UNTITLED (MBFV5), 2016

Sotheby’s London: 17 October 2025
Estimated: GBP 150,000 – 200,000
GBP 177,800 / USD 238,250

UNTITLED (MBFV5) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED (MBFV5), 2016
Acrylic on shaped canvas mounted on panel
60 3/8 x 36 1/4 inches (153.5 x 92 cm)
Signed and dated 16 (on the reverse)

Executed during a pivotal period in KAWS’ career, Untitled (MBFV5) is a striking example of the artist’s iconic visual language. An almost intoxicating palimpsest of popular iconography, the present work exemplifies KAWS’ ongoing exploration into the boundaries between high and low culture, authorship and appropriation and the emotional resonances of the familiar reimagined. The artist’s signature motifs converge in the present work, depicted in an electric palette that heightens both the visual intensity and subversive nature of the composition. The shaped canvas itself, constituted by the overlapping silhouettes of popular cartoon figures, embodies the artist’s enduring interest in formal and conceptual layering, a notion that has come to define KAWS’ uniquely subversive position in the history of contemporary art.

“The familiar is just a starting point. Even though the images are widely known, they are somehow personal to me. The emotion in the work is just something that comes out as I develop the works I want to make. I try to make honest work that reflects what I’m thinking at the time I’m producing it.”

Although simultaneously recalling the emotive dynamism of Abstract Expressionism, the hard-edged precision of Minimalism and the Pop infatuation with mass-media imagery, KAWS remains resolutely idiosyncratic in his visual mode. In approaching the inherent abstraction of cartoons and their visual tropes, KAWS challenges pre-established notions of semiotics. Here, re-envisioning beloved cartoon figures such as Snoopy from Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts and synthesizing them with his signature X-eye motif and dynamic manipulation of form, KAWS transforms nostalgia into a site of poignant, existential ambiguity. Through deconstructing these widely recognized symbols, he renders the once-comforting and legible strangely elusive, inviting the viewer to reconsider the ways through which meaning is both constructed and perceived. Amplified by its towering scale, Untitled (MBFV5) is an exuberant demonstration of the formal dynamism that has come to position KAWS as one of the most influential and disruptive artists of our cultural zeitgeist.

 

UNTITLED, 2016

Sotheby’s London: 25 June 2025
Estimated: GBP 200,000 – 300,000
GBP 228,600 / USD 313,180

UNTITLED | Contemporary Day Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

KAWS (b. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2016
Acrylic on shaped canvas
72×52 inches (182.9 x 132.1 cm)
Signed and dated .16 (on the reverse)

The present work by the New York based artist KAWS, playfully confronts the viewer with a dolphin-shaped canvas which combines the artist’s most admired iconography with a wide range of pop culture and art historical references. The work seems to leap out of the wall as the cartoonish, sharply outlined dolphin is enigmatically captured at the height of its emergence from the water. The work exemplifies KAWS’s continuous exploration of new possibilities in art, breaking away from traditional rectangular canvases into three-dimensional abstractions, defying the edge of the canvas and blurring the boundaries between the image and the real world. KAWS freezes the subject, capturing its energy while creating a sense of movement. He is particularly fond of the strong graphic contours, characteristic of cartoon characters, which he distinctively translates into his shaped canvases. This is further highlighted by smooth, bright planes of color in both geometric and organic shapes.

“The familiar is just a starting point. Even though the images are widely known, they are somehow personal to me. The emotion in the work is just something that comes out as I develop the works I want to make. I try to make honest work that reflects what I’m thinking at the time I’m producing it.”

The relationship between American cartoon culture and high art can be traced back to the concept of Pop Art, in which artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein utilized bright colours, industrial uniformity and striking proportions to mimic the eye-catching nature of advertising. Overwhelmed by an endless abundance of images, posters, cartoons and advertisements, KAWS presents the viewer with striking images that have already entered the collective memory – one could imagine them existing in the surrounding space, outside the physical boundaries of the canvas.

KAWS has been exhibited at the Doha Fire Station Museum, National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, High Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. The present Untitled remains a prime example of the artist’s striking visual language and bold adoption of styles associated with pop art and abstraction. It is a masterful example of KAWS’s significance and his multi-dimensional impact on the zeitgeist of contemporary art.

PAY THE DEBT TO NATURE, 2010

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 7,500,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 5,969,000 / USD 764,179

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Evening… Lot 23 May 2024 | Phillips

One of the most incredible aspects of KAWS’s career and practices is his adventurousness: there is no method of making art that he is not willing to explore, giving him a vast range of tools and influences throughout his rich career. It began with graffiti on the streets of New York as a child, which continued with an illustration degree at its School of Visual Arts, integrating his own designs into the billboards and advertisements of the city. Collaborations with photographers, fashion designers, and toy manufacturers have let him cannibalize multiple forms of established media, injecting his morbid-yet-friendly aesthetic in a similarly disruptive manner and unsettling their cultural dominance in a similar manner to Warhol. In the exhibition PAY THE DEBT TO NATURE at Galerie Perrotin, it is portrayed as ‘a man captured and manhandled by Nature, which has reclaimed its rights’, yet just as the title suggests, the ‘debts to Nature’ is rendered as faceless and depthless cutouts, filled by single and unmoderated colors. Aside from a jagged, similarly monotone tree branch bending down on said man, the landscape and objects around them have little suggestion of the real world: amorphous blobs and stalagmitic downward spikes fill the black background.

By mixing this abstract free play with vaguely cartoon figures, KAWS shows us the shared freedoms of popular animation and high art, without being bound by either label. Both can defy standard realism and figuration to show us incredible new creative visions but can also become trapped and stale through mass-reproduction, academic sermonizing, and overfamiliarity. KAWS allows us to see their potential again: ‘This is not a simple mixing of the cartoon figure with the abstract, but a blurring of the two, bringing to light the abstract nature of cartoons, as well as the figural possibilities of abstraction’. His uncontainable oeuvre, constantly introducing new mediums and methods rather than keeping to the familiar, only heightens this effect.

KAWS’s signature graffiti tag on a MetLife billboard, 1995. Artwork: © KAWS

In this way, his painting continues to introduce revelatory new sights and connections, while carrying over a practice from the outset of his career. As his early graffiti work introduced unexpected colors, patterns, and characters into familiar commercial environments, his painting -executed with the same precise wildness- strands mass-media figures, broken down and recolored, in the world of the art gallery, where they can inspire and provoke again. For all his prestige, success, and global ubiquity, KAWS is still finding ways to make art feel exciting and new.

UNTITLED (DBZ2), 2007

Phillips New-York: 14 November 2023
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,875,000

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 57 November 2023 | Phillips

Untitled (DBZ2), 2007, leverages KAWS’ understanding of both Japanese and American popular culture in the mid-2000s. In the legacy of Pop masters such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, mixed with the edge of Appropriation artists and street art, KAWS’ keenly deploys the universal language of cartoons in his work, filtered through his own iconic character, the COMPANION. At first glance, KAWS’ Untitled (DBZ2) seems to perfectly appropriate a still from the popular anime series Dragon Ball Z. The work presents the show’s main character, Goku, at left, and the god Kami, at right, facing the viewer in a yellow paneled room. However, KAWS has purposefully simplified the composition, removing the Japanese kanji on each character’s tunic, and replacing each face with the visage of the COMPANION.

Animation still from Dragon Ball Z, Raditz Saga, episode 6, “No Time Like the Present,” 1989. U.S. airdate: June 22, 2005.  

Developed to accompany the advertisement models in KAWS’ graffiti works of the 1990s, the COMPANION has become an iconic figure in its own right. With its fluffy poufs, and blank, skull-like face with crossed-out eyes, the COMPANION is as recognizable as any other international cartoon character, Goku included. KAWS painted prolifically from popular cartoons in the early 2000s, from Dragon Ball Z to SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons. With works like Untitled (DBZ2), KAWS proves how cartoons can be a universal language, and a ready surface for his own COMPANION character, that allows his work to transcend geographic and cultural differences to reach a worldwide audience.  KAWS, born Brian Donnelly in New Jersey, first visited Japan in 1997, where he met fellow artists and culture makers including Yoshifumi “Yoppi” Egawa of HECTIC, Tomoaki “Nigo” Nagao (longtime KAWS collaborator and founder of A Bathing Ape), and Hikaru Iwanaga, founder of the toy design company, Bounty Hunter. These creatives introduced KAWS to the Japanese practice of creating high-quality, limited-edition collectible toys, and the subculture of otaku, an obsession with manga and anime (Dragon Ball Z included). This relationship between popular culture and commerce became a blueprint for KAWS’ own art practice, creating works that scaled from collectible toys to monumental sculptures.

Two works: (i) T.N.O.N.-Y; (ii) T.N.O.N.-F, 2012

Phillips New-York: 16 May 2023
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 152,400

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 421 May 2023 | Phillips

REPEAT SALE

Phillips New-York: 9 March 2022
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 226,800

KAWS – New Now New York Lot 32 March 2022 | Phillips

Executed in 2012, T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F are two monumental examples that showcase KAWS’s iconic imagery of subverted and altered cartoonlike characters drawn from popular culture. By abstracting his subjects to such a degree that renders them nearly unrecognizable, the artist’s immediately identifiable interventions have drawn comparisons to the works of 20^th century masters such as Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella. Oscillating between the ostensibly fixed antagonistic traditions of Pop Art and geometric abstraction, KAWS brilliantly revitalizes the fields of both figuration and abstraction to interrogate our relationship with consumerism, advertising and pop culture. The present works form part of his discrete 2012 series of 50 vertical canvases titled THE NATURE OF NEED. Pulling the viewer’s eye in several directions, this chapter of KAWS’s oeuvre is defined by its Baroque palette of dramatic black juxtaposed with bright hues, marking a palpable shift in the artist’s practice. In THE NATURE OF NEED, KAWS contorted fragments of the facial features of SpongeBob SquarePants and experimented with reducing them to their barest expressions. Forcing the viewer to both take in the series in its entirety and examine the intricacies of each individual panel, KAWS tapped into the Pop Art tradition of seriality and variation. This series was thus a way for KAWS to simultaneously echo ideas put forth by his predecessors while making his own playful mark on the genre. T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F are characterized by hyper-zoomed-in lines that vaguely portray an eye, a nose, a mouth or a tooth. By inflating the scale to such a degree, a fresh personality is given to these once familiar forms, affirming the robust conceptual backbone of transformation in KAWS’s work. As meaning is increasingly stripped from and assigned to logotypes at a disorienting rate, KAWS’ T.N.O.N-Y and T.N.O.N-F paintings push viewers to consider the manipulation, representation and consumption of media in the contemporary landscape.

WILL IT HAPPEN, 2011

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 3,800,000 – 5,800,000
HKD 6,804,000 / USD 871,748

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
WILL IT HAPPEN, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
68×86 inches (173 x 218.7 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS .. 11’ (on the reverse)

 

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Bronze Companions

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KAWS’ companion series dates to 1999 when the artist was commissioned to design a limited edition toy for influential Japanese streetwear brand Bounty Hunter. The resulting character, nicknamed Companion, appropriated elements of Disney’s Mickey Mouse, a decision influenced by the artist’s study of illustration at New York’s School of Visual Arts and his earlier career a freelance animation illustrator. According to the artist, the skull and crossbones motif and crossed out eyes are an attempt to utilize universally recognizable images and themes to communicate ideas succinctly and effectively across international audiences. The skull and crossbones and crossed out eyes are recurring symbols within the artist’s oeuvre and different iterations can be traced back to his roots in urban graffiti and street tags from the 1990s. Later, the artist incorporated the trademark imagery in further appropriations of popular cartoon characters, including his unique version of “the Simpsons” and characters from the iconic “Peanuts” comic strips.

SEPARATED, 2021

Phillips New-York: 21 May 2026
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 374,100

KAWS Modern & Contemporary Art: Afternoon Session

In SEPARATED, KAWS’ now iconic COMPANION is seated on the ground, legs crossed, body folded inward. Its head is buried into its hands, fully obscuring the face: a rare and deliberate erasure of identity. The posture is compact, almost protective, as if the figure is attempting to disappear into itself. The formal vocabulary remains consistent with KAWS’ Companion: rounded ears, simplified anatomy, and gloved hands marked with the signature “X.” Yet here, these familiar elements are subordinated to gesture. The sculpture is no longer about character recognition: it is about emotional state.

Despite its apparent simplicity, the sculpture is carefully engineered. The compact pose creates a self-contained volume, allowing the work to function almost as a closed form: an object that resists external engagement, mirroring its internalized subject. Released during a period marked by global disruption, Separated Companion was widely interpreted as a reflection of collective emotional states: loneliness, anxiety, and disconnection. While KAWS rarely anchors his works in explicit narratives, the timing of this release inevitably shaped its reception. The sculpture also extends a trajectory within KAWS’ practice toward increasingly introspective figures. From earlier standing or reclining Companions, the move to a fully withdrawn posture represents a conceptual shift: the character is no longer performing for the viewer, but retreating from them.

At its core, Separated Companion is about absence: of face, of expression, of interaction. By covering the head entirely, KAWS removes the primary site of communication, forcing the viewer to read the body instead. The result is immediate and universal. The work operates in a delicate space between specificity and abstraction. It is clearly a figure, yet its emotional content is open-ended: grief, exhaustion, shame, or simply withdrawal. This ambiguity is precisely what gives the sculpture its strength. The title reinforces this reading. “Separated” suggests not only physical isolation, but also a psychological divide: between self and world, between presence and disappearance.

GONE, 2018

Phillips London: 6 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 600,000 – 800,000
GBP 571,500 / USD 731,520

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art Eveni… Lot 27 March 2025 | Phillips

Few contemporary artists have successfully navigated the intersection of high art and popular culture with the precision and impact of KAWS. Born Brian Donnelly in 1974, KAWS has spent the last three decades reshaping the way audiences engage with art, seamlessly merging the visual languages of street culture, consumerism, and fine art. His instantly recognizable characters—hybrid figures that reference cartoon nostalgia while carrying deep emotional resonance—have solidified his status as one of the most influential artists of his generation.

Among these, GONE stands as one of KAWS’ most poignant and sophisticated works, distilling the essence of his practice into a single sculptural moment. Debuting at Skarstedt Gallery in New York as part of KAWS’ inaugural exhibition with the gallery – also titled GONE – the work depicts his iconic ‘COMPANION’ figure carrying the lifeless body of ‘BFF’ in an unmistakable reference to Michelangelo’s Pietà. This powerful composition transforms KAWS’ familiar characters into a meditation on grief, loss, and the passage of time—an evolution of his practice that deepens the emotional weight behind his work.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t going to galleries, I wasn’t going to museums […] There was a lot of ‘this is fine art’ or ‘this is not fine art’; ‘this is commercial’, ‘this is high art’. In my mind I thought, art’s purpose is to communicate and reach people. Whichever outlet that’s being done through is the right one.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pietà, 1497–1499, St Paul’s Basilica, Vatican City. Image: wikicommons

Since the late 1990s, KAWS’ artistic trajectory has been shaped by a commitment to reimagining mass culture. Beginning as a graffiti artist known for subverting advertisements on billboards and bus shelters, KAWS quickly developed a signature visual language: rounded forms, bold color palettes, and the ever-present X-ed-out eyes that imbue his figures with a unique blend of melancholy and universality. COMPANION, first introduced in 1999 as a limited-edition vinyl figure, has served as the linchpin of his oeuvre—a character who, despite its cartoon-like origins, speaks poignantly to the human condition. In scaling-up his originally toy-sized figures, KAWS shifts the dynamic between the viewer and the work.

“Something somebody could hold in their hand at one point […] can probably now hold you.”

This change in scale dramatically alters the way we relate to KAWS’ sculptures, especially works like GONE which not only reflect human emotions but also mirror a human-like scale. In stark contrast to earlier iterations of COMPANION—who has often been depicted covering its eyes in shame or sitting in introspective repose—here, the character takes on a tragic heroism. By cradling BFF’s limp body, COMPANION shifts from a symbol of personal anguish to one of collective mourning. The evocation of the Pietà lends the work an art-historical gravity, situating KAWS within a lineage of artists who have explored themes of sacrifice and loss. This sculptural composition does more than monumentalize his characters—it elevates them to the realm of universal myth.

While GONE speaks to the depth of KAWS’ conceptual framework, it also underscores his unique ability to reach audiences beyond the traditional art world. His practice exists at the intersection of multiple cultural spaces: fine art, fashion, collectible design, and street culture. KAWS has successfully maintained his integrity across these platforms, producing work that is as at home in the Brooklyn Museum as it is in a Supreme collection. His collaborations with brands like Dior and Uniqlo have only further cemented his role as a cultural force—one whose appeal spans generations and demographics. GONE encapsulates the artist’s ability to bridge high and low culture while maintaining an acute sense of emotional truth. It shares a thematic lineage with works like the 2011 PASSING THROUGH, where COMPANION sits in dejection, and KAWS’ 2019 Art Basel installation, where his figure lays in a sea of existential dread, afloat in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. Yet, unlike these works, GONE possesses a cinematic drama that propels KAWS’ work into the realm of narrative potency. The sculpture invites viewers share in a moment of loss, to feel the weight—both literal and figurative—of COMPANION’s grief. As Anne Pasternak remarks, ‘[KAWS] emphasizes that even within a world shaped by image and consumption, universal emotions–from love and friendship to loneliness and alienation–are what binds us.’

KAWS’ inflatable COMPANION figure installed in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in conjunction with Art Basel, 2019.
Image: Imaginechina Limited / Alamy Stock Photo, Artwork: © KAWS

KAWS’ enduring impact stems from his ability to distil human emotion into forms that are simultaneously playful and reflective. GONE is a testament to this rare alchemy, a work that transcends its materiality to become a symbol of contemporary pathos. As collectors and institutions continue to embrace his work, pieces like GONE will be recognized not just as striking sculptures, but as touchstones of an era—one in which art, culture, and commerce collide in ways that redefine the landscape of contemporary visual expression.

GONE, 2020

Christie’s London: 26 June 2025
Estimated: GBP 500,000 – 700,000
GBP 567,000 / USD 776,790

KAWS (B. 1974), GONE | Christie’s

KAWS (B. 1974)
GONE, 2020
Painted bronze
71 x 71 1/2 x 31 1/8 inches (180.3 x 181.6 x 79.1 cm)
Stamped with the artist’s signature, number and date ‘1⁄1 KAWS.. 20’ (on the underside)
This work is number one from an edition of one, plus one artist’s proof

COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2011

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 2,032,000 / USD 260,146

https://www.phillips.com/detail/kaws/HK010224/172

“When I was younger, I wasn’t going to galleries, I wasn’t going to museums … There was a lot of ‘this is fine art’ or ‘this is not fine art’; ‘this is commercial’, ‘this is high art’. In my mind I thought, art’s purpose is to communicate and reach people. Whichever outlet that’s being done through is the right one.” 

Waiting, 2017

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2021
Estimated: HKD 5,200,000 – 7,200,000
HKD 9,130,000 / USD 1,171,465

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
Waiting, 2017
Bronze and paint sculpture
178.4 (H) x 85.1 x 72.1 cm (70 1/4 x 33 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches)
Signed, dated and numbered 3⁄7 KAWS..17′ (on the underside)

COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2010

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 10 October 2021
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
HKD 3,276,000 / USD 420,805

KAWS | COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH) 同伴（PASSING THROUGH） | Contemporary Art Day Sale | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH), 2010
Bronze
47 1/8 x 25 5/8 x 28 inches (119.6 x 65 x 71 cm)
This work is AP2 from an edition of 10, plus 2 artist’s proofs

 

TOGETHER, 2017

Phillips Hong-Kong: 8 June 2021
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 9,000,000
HKD 10,656,000 / USD 1,373,150

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary Art … Lot 34 June 2021 | Phillips

Prodigious in scale, standing at over six feet tall, TOGETHER is instantly recognizable as a major work by KAWS, one of the most prominent and forward-looking artists of our present age. From a rare and particularly evocative small series of seven editions plus 2 artist’s proofs, this is the first time TOGETHER has ever been offered at auction before.

Stunningly realized in meticulously painted bronze, the present work depicts two of KAWS’s instantly recognizable COMPANION figures, which since their inception in 1999, have come to be recognized as among his most prized motifs. Differing from the other large-scale bronze works by the artist that have appeared on the market, most of which feature a solitary COMPANION rendered in various poses, here, KAWS presents us with a pair who are caught in a firm embrace – their arms tightly wrapped around one another in a manner that powerfully injects notions of humanity into the composition, juxtaposing the materiality of the solid sculptural piece.

 KAWS, TOGETHER, 2017 installed in St. Louis, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, FAR FAR DOWN, 5 May – 13 August 2017

Testament to the importance of this work, TOGETHER made its museum debut in 2017 at the esteemed Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, United States, where it was installed in the heart of the museum’s impressive courtyard, set against a backdrop of KAWS’s immense site-specific painting on the museum’s Project Wall. Despite the enormity of the space, it was TOGETHER that demanded the full attention of visitors – the COMPANION’s warm embrace evoking emotions and triggering a sense of childlike reverie.

KAWS, TOGETHER, 2017, installed at Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, KAWS: Companionship in the Age of Loneliness, 20 September 2019 – 15 March 2020, as featured in the exhibition’s catalogue, n.p.

Indeed, with further editions of the work featured in major exhibitions hosted by leading institutions around the world, including the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation, and Qatar Museum’s Doha Fire Station, TOGETHER is a prime and rare example from KAWS’s unique practice that perfectly embodies the very best of his impressive oeuvre.

KAWS follows in the longstanding tradition of sculpting in bronze, creating figures that stand firmly rooted to the ground yet appear animated, about to move at any time. His materiality brings to mind the working methods of Henry Moore, the famous English artist who became well-known for his large-scale bronze sculptures which frequently depicted abstract forms of reclining figures. Indeed, his work is interesting to consider in relation to KAWS, as like Moore, KAWS is deftly able to capture the intimacies of a relationship through the medium of bronze on a large-scale, demonstrating an adroit understanding of the medium that only few have mastered. Works such as Family Group (1949) by Moore demonstrate the English artist’s ability to evoke a lightness and dynamism despite the heaviness of its material, beautifully representing the trio’s tender emotional connection. In a similar manner, KAWS is able to uniquely portray a poignant moment in TOGETHER, stimulating the emotions of the viewer as we look on as an outsider to the intimate gesture.

Henry Moore, Family Group, 1949 / Collection of Tate, London

In making a more contemporary comparison, the work of Jeff Koons is prescient to consider in relation to that of KAWS, as he too references pop culture imagery in his work, manipulating his influences through scale and material. For example, Koons’ life-size Hulks from his acclaimed Hulk Elvis series (2004-14) are made from bronze, but appear weightless, their materiality curiously resembling that of inflatable toys. Working in a similar vein, KAWS’s TOGETHER also retains the smooth, toy-like appearance of his original vinyl miniatures blurring the lines between high art and low art in his juxtaposition of materiality.

Jeff Koons, Hulk (Organ), 2004-14

TOGETHER is engaging and enigmatic in equal measure, however, and differs from Koon’s Hulk in the intriguingly human aura each COMPANION figure evokes. Although COMPANION is often portrayed seeming sad, overwhelmed, or tired, hunched over or shying away from the world, here, the two COMPANION figures hug tightly, looking out at the viewer from over the other’s shoulder. As they are positioned together, we, the viewer, look on alone. Though conveying a playful disposition through their cartoon language which introduces a nostalgic potency, working to harness our childhood memories, both their body language and size is distinctly human, marking a strange shift in perspective that makes us feel as if it is we who have entered into their toy world. Contrasting this, however, are each figure’s pair of X-ed out eyes that eerily confront us, reminiscent of the image of cartoons after a character has drunk from a vial of poison. The inclusion of his signature detail gives a slightly sinister edge to the otherwise sweet work as KAWS blends playful wit with more morbid undertones, evoking empathy, humor, as well as a meditative reflection on fragility, ultimately presenting the viewer with a powerful exploration of the human condition.

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Wood Companions

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BETTER KNOWING, 2003

Phillips New-York: 20 November 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 571,500

KAWS – Modern & Contemporary Art D… Lot 324 November 2024 | Phillips

BETTER KNOWING, 2013, realizes KAWS’ signature figure at a monumental scale. Taking the form of a highly stylized Pinocchio, the artist’s widely celebrated COMPANION character sits in a contemplative posture, holding his nose in his hand. A significant work from the artist’s practice, another example of BETTER KNOWING was exhibited in KAWS’ major 2016–2017 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, which then travelled to the Luz Museum Shanghai. A bronze iteration of the figure was exhibited in front of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 2015 as part of the ArtZuid sculpture biennial. The global reception of the work is a testament to KAWS’ cross-cultural appeal and potent relevancy within contemporary culture.  BETTER KNOWING takes the form of KAWS’ best-known figure, COMPANION, a distorted Mickey Mouse of sorts that was first released by the artist as a toy edition in 1999. COMPANION was later joined by ACCOMPLICE, a similar but distinct figure modelled after a toy bunny with floppy ears, and CHUM, modelled after the Michelin man. The three figures comprise a trinity within KAWS’ practice, appearing in his most important and recognizable works. On one level playful and cartoon-esque, KAWS’ figures are often presented grappling with complex emotions.

In the present example, COMPANION takes on the added reference of Pinocchio, an iteration KAWS has explored in additional works including SMALL LIE, 2013. With BETTER KNOWING, KAWS engages with the moral creed of the Disney movie and the emotions of its flawed main character. The figure sits on the floor with his head bowed low and holding his nose, which has seemingly fallen off. The psychologically charged, abstracted rendering of Pinocchio puts KAWS in the company of Maurizio Cattelan and Jim Dine, who have also famously reinterpreted the tragicomic hero. KAWS is expert at creating characters that solicit empathy as they trudge through life, often depicted in forlorn postures. Featuring non-human subjects, his works are abstract enough to stand in for generalized emotions. As compelling anthropomorphic figures, they solicit interest and empathy.

Small Lie, 2013

Sotheby’s New-York: 1 March 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 698,500

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/contemporary-curated/small-lie

KAWS (b. 1974)
Small Lie, 2013
Afromasia wood
91x33x40 inches (231.1 x 83.8 x 101.6 cm)
This work is number 3 from an edition of 3

Towering over the viewer at eight feet tall, KAWS’s monumental wooden sculpture Small Lie isa defining example of the artist’s signature series of COMPANION sculptures. KAWS’s COMPANIONS rank amongst the most emblematic figures within the American artist’s pervasive visual lexicon. In recent years, Brooklyn-based Brian Donnelly – known more widely by his moniker KAWS – has not only earned his position as one of the most acclaimed sculptors of our generation, but has also become firmly established as a universally recognized household name. In the present work, the warm grain of Afromosia wood and rounded curves of the cartoonish silhouette are reminiscent of children’s toys, evoking a tactile memory of childhood.

THE PRESENT WORK INSTALLED IN KAWS: WHAT PARTY, THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM, FEBRUARY – SEPTEMBER 2021.

This nostalgic familiarity is disrupted by the sculpture’s colossal scale. It is principally through his large-scale sculptures which juxtapose qualities in materiality and imagery, that KAWS successfully traverses the realms of high art and mass culture, with his trademark COMPANION character at the very forefront of this campaign. Global icons of our time, the COMPANION figures are simultaneously endearing and sinister, playful and psychologically charged. Their universal appeal lies in KAWS’s attention grabbing aesthetic “that merges,” as writer Emily Gosling attests, “childhood nostalgia with the macabre… [to join] up the dots between street art, fine art and merch” (Emily Gosling, ‘No KAWS for concern’, It’s Nice That, 4 February 2016, online).

Small Lie, 2013

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
HKD 6,985,000 / USD 889,820

KAWS | Small Lie 小謊言 | 50th Anniversary Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Small Lie, 2013
Wood
96 x 44 1/2 x 41 inches (243.8 x 113 x 104.1 cm)
This work is from an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs

“He [COMPANION] deals with life the way everyone does. He is more real in dealing with contemporary human circumstances. He reflects attitudes we all have”

FINAL DAYS, 2014

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 6,200,000 – 8,200,000
HKD 8,115,000 / USD 1,040,740

KAWS – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 47 November 2021 | Phillips

“I was thinking of the relationship I’ve had to wood toys growing up and the warmth and feeling they have when you hold them in your hand or place them on a shelf or table and stare at them, I wanted to expand on that, to create a wooden sculpture that makes you feel small but at the same time I want the viewer to feel like they should somehow help or console the work, despite its towering size.”

Truly contemporary in its formation, FINAL DAYS is made from afromosia hardwood sourced in Africa with the craftsmanship of master craftspeople in Europe. The exposed natural grains of the wood form exquisite swirling striations along the smooth polished surface, with each strip of wood punctiliously fabricated to align with the contours of the figure’s body.

Final Days, 2016

Sotheby’s London: 10 November 2021
Estimated: GBP 700,000 – 1,000,000
GBP 874,100 / USD 1,180,955

Final Days | Contemporary Curated | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
Final Days, 2016
Afromosia wood
81 1/2 x 64 1/8 x 90 1/8 inches (207x163x229 cm)
This work is number 1 from an edition of 3, plus 2 artist’s proofs

FINAL DAYS is a hybrid of the cartoon Smurf and KAWS’s signature COMPANION figure, posed mid-stride in a stance reminiscent of Frankenstein in its 1931 film adaptation. This amalgamation of pop culture references, which range from children’s cartoons to classic horror, is a motif found throughout the artist’s oeuvre. The warm grains of Afromosia wood and the rounded curves of the cartoonish silhouette are reminiscent of children’s toys, evoking a tactile memory of childhood. This nostalgic familiarity is disrupted by the sculpture’s colossal scale. There is a humorous absurdity in its title, which alludes to apocalyptic imagery, despite the work’s playful execution. By juxtaposing qualities in materiality, imagery and scale, the artist effectively blurs the traditional distinctions between high art and street culture. The tradition of the first-generation pop artists, such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, KAWS utilizes iconic pop culture imagery and its universal appeal to challenge and deconstruct cultural boundaries. Following his studies in illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, KAWS worked as a freelance illustrator for Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, and the animated series Daria and Dong. Perhaps this experience informed the design of his signature COMPANION figure, whose design is based on Mickey Mouse.

Installation view of Kaws: Where the End Starts, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, October 2016 – July 2017.
Image: © Courtesy of YUZ Museum / Artwork: © KAWS 2020

The present work epitomizes the artist’s ability to reimagine nostalgic symbols of childhood and popular culture for the contemporary audience, whose relationship with mass media is particularly potent. KAWS first began experimenting with wood in 2005 when he partnered with Karimoku, a Japanese furniture company, to produce his iconic COMPANION in wood.

“I was thinking of the relationship I’ve had to wood toys growing up, and the warmth and feeling they have when you hold them in your hand. I wanted to expand on that, to create a wooden sculpture that made you feel smart but at the same time I want the viewer to feel like they should somehow help or console the work, despite its towering gaze.”

The smooth, varnished surface of FINAL DAYS consists of different planks of wood, joined in a technique evocative of marquetry. In adopting a technique which traditionally highlights technical artistry for the surface of a franchised cartoon character, FINAL DAYS unapologetically confronts the question of mass production and craftsmanship, recontextualizing the present-day artistic production within a larger cultural debate.

 

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Fiberglass Companions

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COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE), 2011

Sotheby’s New-York: 17 November 2022
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 982,800

COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KAWS (b. 1974)
COMPANION (ORIGINALFAKE), 2011
Fiberglass and paint
96x48x36 inches (244x122x92 cm)
This work is from an edition of 3, plus 2 artist’s proofs

Standing at over eight feet tall, and rendered in stunning grayscale, KAWS’ imposing Companion sculpture towers over the viewer in an impressive display of scale and bravado that has come to define the artist’s work. The present rendition of Companion displays the vertical cross sectional anatomy of the cartoon figure’s body, exposing the figure’s internal organs on the viewer’s right-hand side, and concealing them on the viewer’s left. The work can be interpreted as a playful contemporary take on the ancient artistic trope of memento mori.

 Simultaneously KAWS delves into the extensive study and examination of anatomy within art history, dating back to the detailed anatomical dissections undertaken by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo during the Italian Renaissance in the 16th Century. The work also evokes Damien Hirst’s cross sections of various animals and human figures in seminal pieces such as Mother and Child Divided (1993) and Hymn (1999-2005).

KAWS’ sculptural practice notably eschews themes of grandeur or heroism typically found in action figures and other toys, focusing instead on themes of melancholy, solitude, or mortality to highlight relatable and uniquely human emotions we can all identify with. The dichotomy between the artwork’s playful appearance and solemn symbolism is further emphasized by the the artwork’s toy-like appearance and use of fiberglass and rubberized paint instead of traditional sculptural materials like bronze, wood, or stone.

It’s also important to note KAWS’ use of scale, often used to convey mood and evoke emotional impact. His sculptures are almost never rendered in life size, instead they are produced at either ends of the spectrum of grand oversized sculptures or modest undersized figurines. In the present work, massive, oversized scale is employed to elicit feelings of grandeur and resplendence.

Over the course of KAWS’ storied career, the Companion figure has grown to become an important cultural symbol in its own right and has been adapted, transformed, and displayed in numerous public and institutional settings. Much like the artist himself, Companion has straddled the public, commercial, and fine art contexts, gracing the streets of New York in the form of a float at the 2012 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor as a giant inflatable in 2019. At the same time, the Companion figure has also been featured in prominent solo shows at museums around the world including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2012); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2016); the Yuz Museum, in Shanghai, China (2017); and the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2021).

HOLIDAY (4), 2020

Christie’s Shanghai: 1 March 2022
Estimated: CNY 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
CNY 2,520,000 / USD 399,200

KAWS (B. 1974) (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
HOLIDAY (4), 2020
Aluminum, paint sculpture
28 (H) x 100 x 40 cm (11 x 39 3/8 x 15 3/4 inches)
Incised, dated and numbered 3⁄10 KAWS .. 20′ (on the underside)
Edition 3 of 10 with 2 APs

 

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KAWS Prints & Multiples

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