Kaws artist biography

The artist’s subversive cartoon characters, which started life as toys, have been turned into inflatables for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and paintings that sell for eight-figure sums at auction.

Illustrated with works offered at Christie’s

The artist KAWS with a group of works from his COMPANION series. Photo: © Hye-Ryoung Min. Artworks: © KAWS

KAWS is not his real name

Brian Donnelly (b.

) studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Kaws artist biography

Before he achieved success as an artist, he worked as a background painter on animated series such as Disney’s Dalmatians, and cult shows Daria and Doug.

KAWS started out as a graffiti artist

From an early age, Donnelly was known for marking buildings in New Jersey and Manhattan with ‘KAWS’, a tag he chose because he liked the way the letters looked together.

He soon moved on from this simple tag, however, and d