
KAWS Record Art 2008 (Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak 1st pressing)
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KAWSKAWS Record Art 2008 (Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak 1st pressing)2008
2008

About
Details
- CreatorKAWS (American)
- Creation Year2008
- DimensionsHeight: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)
- Medium
- Movement & Style
- Period
- ConditionVery good to excellent.
- Gallery LocationNEW YORK, NY
- Reference Number1stDibs: LU35435417922
About the Artist
KAWS
In the beginning, Brian Donnelly was just a kid from Jersey City, New Jersey, who got into the graffiti thing. KAWS was his tag, chosen simply because he liked the way it looked. Today, KAWS’s oeuvre encompasses art toys, sculptures and colorful paintings and prints that appropriate pop phenomena like the Smurfs, the Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.
In the late 1990s, the artist, a 1996 graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, was making a living as an illustrator for the animation studio Jumbo Pictures. Like young Hansel and Gretel with their trail of crumbs, KAWS would mark the morning route to his downtown Manhattan office with “subvertising,” “interrupting” fashion advertisements by adding his colorful character Bendy, its sinuous length sliding playfully around the likes of a Calvin Klein perfume bottle or supermodel Christy Turlington.
These creations gained a following, to the point where work posted in the morning would disappear by lunchtime. Even in those early days, KAWS was hot on the resale market.
“When I was doing graffiti,” he once explained, “it meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn’t reaching people.” Instead of seeking entrée to the elite New York art world (which, frankly, wasn’t looking for a street artist anyway), KAWS moved to Japan, where a flourishing youth culture welcomed visionaries like him.
In 1999, he partnered with Bounty Hunter, a Japanese toy and streetwear brand, to release his first toy. Companion — an eight-inch-tall vinyl reimagining of Mickey Mouse, with a skull-and-crossbones head and trademark XX eyes — debuted with a limited run of 500. It sold out quickly.
Companion was the first of more than 130 toy designs, which came to include such characters as Chum, Blitz, Be@rbrick, BFF and Milo, each immediately recognizable as KAWS figures by their XX eyes. Fans have proved insatiable. In 2017, MoMA’s online store announced the availability of a limited supply of KAWS Companion figures; as avid collectors logged on to stake their claim, the website crashed — multiple times.
Companion is the most visible of the KAWS posse, appearing over the past decade in new postures and combinations in monumental works. These include Along the Way (2013), an 18-foot-tall wooden sculpture of two Companions leaning on each other for support; Together (2016), two Companions in a friendly embrace, which debuted during an exhibition of KAWS’s work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in Texas; and KAWS:HOLIDAY (2018), a 92-foot-long inflatable Companion floating on its back in Seoul’s Seokchon Lake. The sculptures were re-created as toys, blurring the lines between art and commerce.
KAWS’s visual language may be drawn from cartoons, but his work doesn’t necessarily evoke childlike joy. “My figures are not always reflecting the idealistic cartoon view that I grew up on,” he explains in the catalogue for the Fort Worth exhibition. “Companion is more real in dealing with contemporary human circumstances . . . . I think when I’m making work it also often mirrors what’s going on with me at that time.”
KAWS's résumé reads like a record of major 21st-century pop-culture moments. It includes his work with streetwear brands like A Bathing Ape and Supreme; his design for the cover of Kanye West’s 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak; and his collaboration with designer Kim Jones on the Dior Homme Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Jones’s debut as the fashion brand’s creative director.
Learn how to spot a fake KAWS art toy, and browse authentic KAWS prints, sculptures and mixed media works on 1stDibs.
- KAWS 2009 The Long Way Home (exhibition announcement)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS The Long Way Home: Rare, highly collectible 2000's exhibition announcement for a solo exhibition by KAWS Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles: February 21, 2009 — April 04, 2009. ...Category
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- Signed KAWS artist book 2010 (KAWS Colette Rizzoli blue cover)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYHand signed KAWS limited edition Monograph, 2010 (KAWS Colette): Published with a rare blue lettered KAWS designed cover exclusive to the legendary Par...Category
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- KAWS exhibition poster 2001 (KAWS Tokyo 2001)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Tokyo First Exhibit Poster 2001: 2001 KAWS Parco Gallery exhibition poster featuring a photograph by fashion photographer David Sims reimagined by KAWS in his classic 1990's interventionist style. A KAWS Kimpsons Krusty the Clown graces the background while a signature iconic KAWS Bendy wraps itself around the model. Reverse side features exhibition info from Parco Gallery, including Supreme and A Bathing Ape...Category
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$227 Sale Price30% Off - KAWS Tokyo exhibition anouncement 2003 (KAWS Chum)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Bape Original Fake Exhibit announcement 2003 (KAWS Chum): Rare, highly collectible 2003 KAWS Chum gallery announcement card published on the occa...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Prints
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$315 Sale Price25% Off - KAWS The Aldrich 2011 (vintage KAWS announcement)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (June 27, 2010 to January 2, 2011, Ridgefield, CT): Rare original program to KAWS' first solo exhibition. Staple-bound museum program; approximately 10-15 pages featuring photos & text highlighting the evolution of the artist. Offset printed; 6.5 x 10.5 inches (folded closed). Very good overall condition. Scarce. About KAWS: “KAWS” are a graffiti artist, illustrator, painter, sculptor, product designer and toymaker. His cartoonish style, including his best-known characters with X-ed out eyes has its roots in his early career as a street artist, when he began replacing advertisements with his own, masterful acrylic paintings in the early, 1990s. Since, Kaws has embraced the commercialist spirit of Claes Oldenburg and Takashi Murakami, designing everything from Kanye West album covers to NIKE sneakers...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
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- Untitled (Samurai)By KAWSLocated in New York, NY1999 Offset lithograph in colors on paper Sheet: 14 1/5 x 10 1/5 in. Edition unknown Signed in plate on rectoCategory
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Price Upon Request - Untitled (Two Figures With Champagne Glass)By KAWSLocated in New York, NY1999 Offset lithograph in colors on paper Sheet: 14 1/5 x 10 1/5 in. Edition unknown Signed in plate on rectoCategory
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Price Upon Request - Untitled (Boy in a Park)By KAWSLocated in New York, NY1999 Offset lithograph in colors on paper Sheet: 14 1/5 x 10 1/5 in. Edition unknown Signed in plate on rectoCategory
1990s Pop Art Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Offset
Price Upon Request - Untitled (Couple in Fighting Position)By KAWSLocated in New York, NY1999 Offset lithograph in colors on paper Sheet: 14 1/5 x 10 1/5 in. Edition unknown Signed in plate on rectoCategory
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MaterialsLithograph, Offset
Price Upon Request - KAWS Book Sold Out Phaidon Edition Brooklyn What Party Signed Edition Of 500By KAWSLocated in Atlanta, GACondition: Book is in pristine condition and only opened to photograph the signature. Signature: Hand-signed by artist, Hand Signed By The Artist in Black Sharpie, KAWS 2021...Category
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- Resting place greyBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan.Category
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How to Spot a Fake KAWS Art Toy
Figurines by KAWS have found an eager audience in recent decades, and as with any robust collectibles market, counterfeit versions have followed the mania. Of course, you don’t have to worry about that on 1stDibs, where all our sellers are highly vetted.

KAWS Is Having a Major Effect on Popular Culture, Whether on the Street or in Museums
From graffiti tagger to hypebeast obsession to auction hero — we chart the artist’s rise and his widening influence.
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