Brian Donnelly (born November 4, 1974), known professionally as Kaws (stylized as KAWS), is an American artist and designer. His work includes repeated use of a cast of figurative characters and motifs, some dating back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s, initially painted in 2D and later realized in 3D. Some of his characters are his own creations while others are reworked versions of existing icons. Kaws' sculptures range in size from a few inches to ten meters tall,
. The Independent, 31 January 2016. Accessed 25 March 2017 and are made from various materials including fiberglass, aluminum, wood, bronze, and a steel pontoon inflatable raft. Kaws' influences come from traditional high art painters like Gerhard Richter, Claes Oldenburg, and

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

, and he has been compared to the likes of Andy Warhol for his cross-market appeal and ability to blur lines between commercial and fine art. His work is exhibited in galleries and museums, held in the permanent collections of public institutions, and avidly collected by individuals including music producer Swizz Beatz, internet figure PewDiePie, rappers

Pharrell Williams Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom he ...

Kid Cudi Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi (born January 30, 1984), also known by his stage name Kid Cudi ( ), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor and fashion designer. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Cudi would move to New Yo ...

, and members of South Korean group BTS. A number of books illustrating his work have been published. Kaws lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, creating sculptures, acrylic paintings on canvas, and

screen print Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mes ...

s while also collaborating commercially, predominantly on

limited edition The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, or collector's edition, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints, r ...

toys, but also clothing, skateboard decks, and other products. KAWS is represented by

Skarstedt ''For people with the surname, see Skarstedt (surname).'' Skarstedt is a contemporary art gallery with locations in New York, London, Paris, and East Hampton. History The gallery was founded in 1992 by art dealer Per Skarstedt. Skarstedt's first ...

Gallery, New York.

Early life and education

Donnelly was born in 1974 in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. where he attended St. Anthony High School. As a teenager, Donnelly created a tag for himself, KAWS (based on the way the letters looked — the word, in fact, has no meaning), which he painted on the roof of an area building so that he could see it outside while attending class in high school. He went on to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City, receiving a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

in illustration in 1996. Following graduation, he briefly worked for Jumbo Pictures as a freelance animator painting backgrounds for the animated series ''101 Dalmatians'', '' Daria'' and ''

Doug Doug is a male personal name (or, depending on which definition of "personal name" one uses, part of a personal name). It is sometimes a given name (or "first name"), but more often it is hypocorism (affectionate variation of a personal name) which ...

.''Healy, Murray. And "Graffiti Artist Turned Gallery Artist Turned Art Toy Maker, KAWS." ''Pop''. Feb. 2007: 260-265. Moving to New York City in the 1990s, illegal graffiti was the first step of Kaws learning his craft. Animator by day, and graffiti artist by night, Kaws started subvertising billboards, bus shelters, and phone booths, using a skeleton key gifted to him by friend and fellow graffiti artist Barry McGee.KAWS on 'Brilliant Ideas'
. Bloomberg L.P., 15 June 2016. Accessed 23 March 2017 Using a key he created for himself, he also started subvertising bus shelters. Kaws has since subvertised in Paris, London, Berlin, and Tokyo.

Artworks

Kaws' acrylic paintings and sculpture have many repeating images, all meant to be universally understood, surpassing languages and cultures. Some of his characters date back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s: ''Companion'' (created in 1999), ''Accomplice'', ''Chum'', and ''Bendy''. His series ''The Kimpsons'' subverted the American cartoon '' The Simpsons''. Kaws' ''Companion'' is a grayscale clown-like figure based on

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

with his face obscured by both hands, and two bones sticking out of his head. In 1999, the Japanese toy company Bounty Hunter produced and sold a vinyl ''Companion'' toy (Mickey Mouse with X-ed out eyes ''cloning''). The figure was adapted into a balloon for the 2012 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, as part of its "Blue Sky Gallery" of balloons. Having already created oversized sculptures in the past, Kaws started to produce further sculptures of his ''Companion'' character for exhibitions in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, Hong Kong, Taiwan,

Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...

, London, and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Kaws has periodically shown both paintings and products at Colette in Paris since 1999. His work was included in the traveling exhibition ''Beautiful Losers'', which started at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center and traveled throughout the US and Europe, including his then-largest museum show to date at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA in 2012. On April 1, 2019 at Sotheby's in Hong Kong, ''The Kaws Album'' (2005), a painting by Kaws commissioned by Nigo, sold for 115.9 million Hong Kong dollars, or about $14.7 million U.S. dollars, a new auction record for the artist at the time. Kaws's style can be characterized by an emphasis on color and line, distinctive graphics, such as the repeated use of "x"s on the hands, nose, eyes, ears, and the appropriation of pop culture icons such as

, the Michelin Man, and his characters are generally depicted in a shy and/or powerless pose often with their hands over their nose. In his paintings, Kaws always deconstructs his appropriation of iconic characters into shapes that produces abstract paintings.

Products and commercial collaborations

KAWS Moonman - 2013 MTV Video Music Awards

Since his first vinyl toy with the Japanese clothing brand Bounty Hunter in 1999, he has collaborated on toys with other Japanese companies:

Nigo is a Japanese fashion designer, disc jockey (DJ), record producer and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the urban clothing line A Bathing Ape (Bape) and currently serves as creative director for Kenzo. Additionally he is a member ...

for

A Bathing Ape A Bathing Ape (or BAPE) is a Japanese fashion brand founded by Nigo (Tomoaki Nagao) in Ura-Harajuku in 1993.David FischerNIGO Announces His Definitive Departure from BAPE''highsnobiety'', May 25, 2013

(Bape), Medicom Toy, and Santastic!. Since the beginning of their partnership in 2001, Nigo and Kaws have collaborated on the packaging for Kaws’ “The Kimpsons” exhibit and three seasons of A Bathing Ape. He and Medicom Toy ran OriginalFake, a brand and store in Aoyama, from 2006 to May 2013. Kaws has also collaborated with

Jun Takahashi is a Japanese fashion designer who created the brand Undercover. Early life and education Takahashi was born in Kiryū, Gunma. He attended Gunma Kiryu Nishi High School. In 1988, he enrolled in Fashion Education at Bunka Fashion College. In ...

for the brand Undercover, as a voice-over artist for Michael "Mic" Neumann's

Kung Faux ''Kung Faux'' is an international action comedy television series and audiovisual art assemblage created by Mic Neumann, an American creator–developer showrunner, conceptual artist and multimedia entrepreneur, who remixes classic kung fu films ...

, and worked on projects with Burton, Vans, Supreme and DC Shoes. There are Kaws-designed small edition bottles for

Dos Equis DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

and Hennessy, rugs for Gallery 1950 and packaging for Kiehl's cosmetics. In 2004, he collaborated with Undefeated Brand on a billboard project in Los Angeles. In 2008 he collaborated with

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Mayer attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but left and moved to Atlanta in 1997 with ...

to produce a collection of guitar picks. In 2008, he created cover art for musicians Towa Tei, Cherie,

Clipse Clipse, also known as The Clipse, is an American hip hop duo, chiefly active from 1994 to 2010. It consists of brothers Gene "No Malice" and Terrence "Pusha T" Thornton. Pusha T was known as Terrar during the group's early years, while No Mal ...

(''Clipse Till The Casket Drops'') and Kanye West ('' 808s & Heartbreak'') as well as designed Nike

Air Force 1 Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated Aviation call signs, call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircr ...

trainers (the Nike 1World project involved 18 total designers). And in March 2017, the Nike subsidiary Air Jordan released a capsule collection in collaboration with Kaws – four Air Jordan sneakers customized by Kaws, and a number of apparel pieces. In November/December 2010 he illustrated magazine covers for ''The New Yorker'', ''Clark Magazine'' , ''

i-D ''i-D'' is a British bimonthly magazine published by Vice Media, dedicated to fashion, music, art and youth culture. ''i-D'' was founded by designer and former ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue'' art director Terry Jones (i-D), Terry Jones in 1980. The ...

'' and ''Sneeze Magazine''. In 2011, Kaws appeared on the

Bravo Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels *Bravo (band), a Russian rock band * Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984 *Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing company ...

reality competition series '' Work of Art: The Next Great Artist'', where he was a guest judge for the Season 2 finale. For the

2013 MTV Video Music Awards The 2013 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 25, 2013, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Marking the 30th installment of the award show, they were the first to be held in New York City not to use a venue within the borough of M ...

, Kaws redesigned the MTV Moonman trophy in the form of his "Companion" character, and his 3D model was used to create a 60-foot tall inflatable version. He also redesigned various event materials. In 2014, Kaws designed the bottle artwork for the scent Girl, by Comme des Garçons and

. In 2016, Kaws entered into an ongoing relationship with clothing store Uniqlo to produce a line of affordable T-shirts and accessories; the first line was clothing and soft toys based on the popular children's show '' Sesame Street.'' In April 2017, Uniqlo released a line of '' Peanuts''-themed T-shirts, accessories, and plushies designed by Kaws; and in November 2018, Kaws created a second line range of ''Sesame Street''-themed clothing and soft toys. In May 2017, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City released limited supplies of the $200 Kaws Companion action figure, resulting in the MoMA Design Store website crashing due to the unprecedented rush of traffic. In May 2017, UK auction house

Phillips Phillips may refer to: Businesses Energy * Chevron Phillips Chemical, American petrochemical firm jointly owned by Chevron Corporation and Phillips 66. * ConocoPhillips, American energy company * Phillips 66, American energy company * Phil ...

sold a ''Kaws Seated Companion'' (2011) bronze sculpture for approximately US $411,000. In May 2018, Kaws installed two 26-foot tall ''Companion'' and ''BFF'' sculptures at a shopping complex in Changsha, China. In October 2019, Kaws unveiled "WAITING", a sculpture in Greenpoint, Brooklyn located in front of 21 India Street. In July 2021, Kaws collaborated with Travis Scott. In July 2022, Kaws collaborated with J-Hope, one of the members of BTS, for his solo album cover. The 2022 release of General Mills' Monster Cereals features box art by Kaws.

Controversy

Comic book artist Bill Morrison felt "ripped off" by Kaws' 2005 work ''The Kaws Album'' because the work was simply a "traced interpretation of my '' Simpsons Yellow Album''" (released in 1998 and signed by Matt Groening), which itself was a parody of the cover art for the

Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...

album ''

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...

'' replaced with characters from the Simpsons.

Criticism

In response to the sale of "The yes he did KAWS Album" at Sotheby's, Anny Shaw wrote that KAWS has not moved on from being a

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

ist, and that his work is conceptually bankrupt. M. H. Miller views Brian Donnelly's career in light of the current state of the art world, where contemporary works are less about cultural value than providing a place to invest the wealth of

billionaires A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

. KAWS is given credit for being modest about his work and admitting that it is not worth the high prices brought upon resale.

Collections

Kaws' work is held in the following permanent public collections: *

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

, Fort Worth, TX: acquired ''Where the End Starts'' in 2012 *

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Brooklyn, NY: 1 piece, "Along the Way" * Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA: 1 piece *

One Campus Martius One Campus Martius is a building located in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It began construction in 2000 and was finished in 2003. It has seventeen floors in total, fifteen above-ground, and two below-ground, and has of office space. The high-rise ...

, Detroit, MI: 1 piece, "Waiting"

Bibliography

*''Kaws Exposed.'' Seattle: ARO Space, 1999. . Edition of 2000 copies. 31 pages of photographs of his graffiti. *''Kaws One.'' Tokyo: Little More, 2001. Edited by Kawachi, Taka and Akio E-da. . *''Kaws C10: The Paintings of Kaws.'' Seattle: Neverstop, 2002. . With an introduced by

Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Edito ...

. Edition of 3000 copies. *''Kaws: 1993-2010.'' Skira Rizzoli), 2009. Written by Mónica Ramírez-Montagut. . A retrospective, with illustrations and text. Edited by Ian Luna and Lauren A. Gould and with a contribution by Germano Celant. *''Kaws: Downtime.'' Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 2012. Edited by Michael Rooks and Seth Zucker. . With a foreword by Michael E. Shapiro, an essay by Rooks, and a list of Kaws exhibitions. 112 pages. A catalogue to accompany the exhibition ''Downtime'' at High Museum of Art. *''Kaws: Final Days Exhibition Catalogue.'' 82 pages covering an exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art of Malaga in 2014. *''Kaws Exhibition Catalogue.'' Wakefield, England: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2016. Photographs by Jonty Wilde. . A catalogue to accompany an exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. With texts by Flavia Frigeri, Helen Pheby, and Clare Lilley.Kaws Exhibition Catalogue"
. Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Accessed 22 March 2017 *''KAWS: Where the End Starts.'' 2017. With text by: Andrea Karnes, Dieter Buchhart, and Michael Auping. .

References

External links

*
Kids on KAWS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaws 1974 births Living people American contemporary artists School of Visual Arts alumni St. Anthony High School (New Jersey) alumni American designers American male sculptors American pop artists Graffiti and unauthorised signage