KAWS Red Blush Companion 'KAWS flayed Companion'
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KAWS Red Blush Companion 'KAWS flayed Companion'
About the Item
- Creator:Medicom Toy (Manufacturer),KAWS (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 14.5 in (36.83 cm)Width: 6 in (15.24 cm)Depth: 4 in (10.16 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:2016
- Condition:New from box.
- Seller Location:Bastrop, TX
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU5807224972832
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.
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- Tony Rosenthal Abstract Sculpture Blackened Steel Red BlushesBy Tony RosenthalLocated in Bloomfield Hills, MISALE ONE WEEK ONLY UNTITLED is an abstract blackened steel sculpture that has a continuous lively movement. The positioning of the heavy metal is suggestive of dance. There are similarities to the sculptors, Robert Sestok and Tony Smith, who both worked in bronze and painted steel with similar cut out pieces and abstract designs. Untitled has a joyous aura and its small size makes it a charming intimate piece. It might have been a maquette for a much larger piece. The design works in this 14" height as it would in a 14' height. There is a Letter of Certification that will accompany the sculpture. Tony Rosenthal (1914 - 2009) is best known for creating a staggering list of monumental public art sculptures. For over seven decades Tony Rosenthal created an arc of sculpture in a variety of sizes, styles and media, including wood, steel, bronze, brass, cement and aluminum. Every day millions see, enjoy and interact with art created by Rosenthal in cities around the world. In New York City alone, five Rosenthal public art sculptures have been beloved and visible 24/7 for over four decades, yet Rosenthal is not a household name. Art dealer Joseph K. Levene, told The New York Times, Tony Rosenthal "reminds me of a character actor. You know the face but not the name. With him, you know the art." Tony Rosenthal dedicated his life to creating art and actively created sculpture everyday in his Southampton, New York studio until he passed away at the age of 94, July 28, 2009. At nine Rosenthal learned the fundamentals of carving sculpture when his mother, an opera singer enrolled him in children's classes at the Art Institute of Chicago where he learned how to carve sculptures in soap. In 1936 Rosenthal earned a B.F.A. from the University of Michigan, and in 1952 became the first instructor of sculpture at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1950 Rosenthal was recipient of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture award; in 1967, Rosenthal received the outstanding achievement award from the University of Michigan and in 1963 a Ford Foundation Grant. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Rosenthal became studio assistant to Alexander Archipenko, the figurative master sculptor, casting bronzes in exchange for sculpture lessons; at night, Rosenthal taught evening classes in drawing and sculpture. In 1939, Rosenthal enrolled at Cranbrook Academy of Art, studying with Carl Milles, Cranbrook's sculptor in residence; there, Rosenthal forged friendships with husband and wife designers Charles Eames and Ray Eames and the sculptor Lilian Swann Saarinen the wife of architect, Eero Saarinen. Decades later Rosenthal acknowledged his gratitude to Cranbrook by donating his archives to them. The Cranbrook Cube, 1984, a 90" painted aluminum cube is in the Cranbrook Museum collection. In 1942, Rosenthal was drafted into the U.S. Army; while stationed in Paris Rosenthal forged friendships with George Braque, Andre Derain, Le Corbusier and Constantin Brancusi, routinely organizing and accompanying groups of soldiers on studio visits. Through multiple visits to Brancusi's Paris studio, Rosenthal learned to create and forge metal sculpture...Category
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How to Spot a Fake KAWS Figure
KAWS art toys have developed an avid audience in recent decades, and as in any robust collectible market, counterfeiters 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.