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KAWSKAWS Companion 2016: complete set of 6 2016
2016

About
Details
- CreatorKAWS (American)
- Creation Year2016
- DimensionsHeight: 11 in. (27.94 cm)Width: 5 in. (12.7 cm)
- Medium
- Movement & Style
- Period
- Condition
- Gallery LocationNEW YORK, NY
- Reference Number1stDibs: LU35434913572
Shipping & Returns
- ShippingShips From: New York, NY
- Return Policy
This item cannot be returned.
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 BFF set of 3 works (KAWS Pink, Black, Blue BFF)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS BFF 2018: Complete Set of 3 (Pink, Black, and Blue). Each, new/unopened in their original packaging: A highly collectible KAWS Companion set and variation of Kaws' large scale B...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl, Resin
- KAWS Brown Passing Through Companion (KAWS brown companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Passing Through Companion 2018. New and sealed in its original packaging. The most iconic of KAWS Companions, this Passing Through figure was published by KAWS One, and has sin...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Passing Through Companion Set (complete set of three 2018)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Companion Passing Through Complete Set of 3 (2018). Each new and sealed in their original packaging. The most iconic of the KAWS Companions presented in 3 color-ways. Published...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS TAKE Blue (blue KAWS Take companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS TAKE (Blue) new & unopened in its original packaging. A standout KAWS figurative sculpture and variation of KAWS' large scale TAKE sculpture - a key highlight of the exhibition...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Flayed Companion (KAWS grey flayed companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Grey Flayed Companion, 2016: A standout grey KAWS figurative piece - new/sealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan in conjunction with the exhibition, KAWS: W...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Brown Flayed Companion 2016 (KAWS flayed brown companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Brown Flayed Companion 2016. New and sealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan in conjunction with the exhibition, KAWS: Where The End Starts at the Modern Ar...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
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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 artworks 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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