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KAWSKAWS Passing Through Companion Set (complete set of three 2018)2018
2018

About the Item
- Creator:KAWS (American)
- Creation Year:2018
- Dimensions:Height: 8 in (20.32 cm)Width: 3.4 in (8.64 cm)Depth: 5 in (12.7 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:NEW YORK, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU35437931792
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.
Shipping & Returns
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: New York, NY
- Return Policy
This item cannot be returned.
- KAWS Clean Slate Grey (KAWS grey Companion)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Clean Slate Grey, new & unopened in its original packaging. A well-received work and variation of KAWS' large scale Clean Slate sculpture - a key highlight of KAWS’ major museu...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS WHAT PARTY complete set of 5 (KAWS Companion set)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS WHAT PARTY, Complete Set of 5: 5 individual KAWS Companions featuring KAWS' CHUM character in a hunched position. Published to commemorate the debut of KAWS’ larger scale sculpt...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Clean Slate Set of 2 (KAWS clean slate brown & grey)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Clean Slate set of 2 (Grey & Brown), new & unopened in original packaging. A well-received work and variation of KAWS' large scale Clean Slat...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Holiday Companions: set of 6 works (KAWS brown companion 2019-2022)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS Companion 2019-2022: A curated set of 6 individual Brown KAWS Companions new & unopened in original packaging. These KAWS holiday companions were born out of KAWS' world famous rotating series of large scale outdoor public exhibitions featuring massive sized renditions of same. A standout series of individual KAWS companions that works nicely in any setting. Please find further information as follows: KAWS UK (12 inches in height). KAWS Fuji...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- KAWS Black BFF Companion (KAWS BFF black)By KAWSLocated in NEW YORK, NYKAWS BFF 2017: New, unopened in its original packaging. KAWS BFF Companion black is a standout KAWS art toy and variation of KAWS' large scale BFF sculpture exhibited in Los Angele...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
$716 Sale Price20% Off - 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: Where The End Starts at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. This grey KAWS flayed Companion has long since sold out. Medium: Painted vinyl, cast resin. Year: 2016. Dimensions: 11 × 5 × 3 in (27.9 × 12.7 × 7.6 cm). New/sealed in its original packaging. Stamped on the underside of foot; from a sold-out / well out of print edition of unknown. COA provided by gallery. Authenticity guaranteed. KAWS: Spanning the worlds of graffiti, pop art, and consumer culture, KAWS’ bodies of work are highly charged, each conveying his underlying wit, irreverence, and affection for our times. He has primarily looked to and appropriated from pop-culture animations (including The Smurfs, The Simpsons, SpongeBob, and Peanuts) to form his artistic vocabulary for his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Now well known for his larger-than-life sculptures and hard-edge paintings that emphasize line and color, KAWS’s cast of hybrid cartoon/human characters, with similarities to popular cartoon figures and logos like Mickey Mouse and the Michelin Man, are perhaps the strongest examples of his exploration of humanity. These figures have amicable names—Chum, Companion, Accomplice—and express and provoke an array of human emotions, from sad, overwhelmed, pathetic, and weary, to shy. They reflect feelings and situations we can empathize with in presentations that are balanced with humor, heartening in their cartoon aesthetic. (source: The Modern Fort Worth). Related Categories: Shepard Fairey. Damien Hirst. Pop Art. Kaws dissected. Takashi Murakami. Banksy...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsResin, Vinyl
- Resting place greyBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan.Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
- Bff Black open edition - MintBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan.Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
- Bounty Hunter BrownBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan.Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
- Companion (5 YL), Blue Glow in the DarkBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan;Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
- Companion (5 YL), Green Glow in the DarkBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan.Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
- Passing through greyBy KAWSLocated in PARIS, FRSealed in its original packaging. Published by Medicom Japan .Category
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsVinyl
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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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