Bonhams 1793 : KAWS (American, born 1974) Untitled (Calvin Klein)

Untitled (Calvin Klein)
1999

signed and numbered 11/14
acrylic on a lithographic base

48 1/3 by 25 9/16 in.
123.4 by 65 cm.

This work was executed in 1999.

Estimate:

US$ 30,000 - 50,000
£20,000 - 33,000
€23,000 - 39,000

Footnotes

Provenance
Pirovino Projex, Santa Monica
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

For a similar illustrated phone booth intervention on the streets of New York see KAWS, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, New York, 2010, p. 80.

It was in his home town of Jersey City that KAWS, aka Brian Donnelly, first became involved in street art. Unlike many of his urban contemporaries, Donnelly decided to take the route of formal art training, studying illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York. A trip to San Francisco in 1995 resulted in a meeting with Barry McGee, whose painted customization of advertising billboards inspired what are now amongst KAWS best known images. His phone booth and bus shelter interventions, which involve either bizarre cartoon figures intertwined with nubile models or skulls masking their faces, first appeared on advertising posters in New York, and have since spread to Paris, London and Tokyo. These additions were carefully painted to blend in seamlessly with the base image in an attempt to raise subtle questions about corporate branding, consumerism and our obsession with fashion. Posters for fashion houses Guess, Moschino, DKNY and Diesel all received this treatment.