KAWS Tension (1) For Sale

KAWS (b. 1974), born Brian Donnelly in Jersey City, New Jersey, is one of the most commercially successful and culturally pervasive contemporary artists of his generation. Working across painting, sculpture, printmaking, and product design, KAWS operates simultaneously in the blue-chip art market, the fashion industry, the toy collectibles market, and global popular culture — a position no other artist of his era has achieved with comparable conviction.

KAWS figures, prints and sculptures for sale at Guy Hepner represent the full range of the artist's practice, from large-format canvas paintings to limited-edition screenprints and highly sought-after vinyl and resin figures. Our gallery offers expert guidance for collectors at every stage, with verified provenance on every piece.

KAWS Figures For Sale

The KAWS figure is the artist's most globally recognised contribution to contemporary culture. Beginning with the COMPANION — a character derived from a hybridisation of Mickey Mouse and the Michelin Man, with characteristic X-marked eyes and crossed-bone motif — KAWS has created a family of figures that exist simultaneously as fine art objects and culturally significant collectibles.

COMPANION figures are available in multiple colourways: the original Black, the highly sought Brown (also known as Warm Grey), standard Grey, and the natural-toned Original (beige). Holiday and seasonal colourways — including the Red and Blue holiday editions — command significant secondary market premiums. The Dissected Companion variant, which features exposed anatomical interiors, is among the most art-historically resonant of KAWS's figure designs.

BFF (Best Friend Forever), introduced in 2013, is a bear-like companion figure inspired by Snoopy, available in multiple colourways and size formats. BFF quickly became one of KAWS's most commercially successful characters.

The KAWS figure market divides clearly between open editions and limited editions:

• Open Edition figures (produced without restriction, widely available at retail): secondary market prices typically $200–$2,000 depending on colourway and size
• Limited Edition figures (numbered, restricted production): secondary market $3,000–$50,000 for standard sizes; larger limited editions $20,000–$150,000
• Rare large-format sculptures and unique works: $500,000 and above at auction

Condition and packaging are paramount in the KAWS figure market. Mint-in-box (MIB) examples command significant premiums over opened figures. The original packaging, with its characteristic KAWS graphic design, is itself a meaningful collector object.

KAWS Paintings For Sale

KAWS's canvas paintings — acrylic on canvas works featuring his signature characters in emotionally charged, compositionally bold arrangements — occupy the highest tier of his market. Large-format canvases depicting Companion, BFF, and related characters in intimate or confrontational arrangements have achieved major auction results at Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips.

The defining auction event for KAWS's painting market came in April 2019, when The KAWS Album — a 2005 painting reworking the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover with KAWS characters — achieved HKD 115.9 million (approximately $14.7 million USD) at Sotheby's Hong Kong, against a pre-sale estimate of HKD 8–12 million. This result announced KAWS definitively to Asian collectors and dramatically expanded his global auction market.

Other major canvas results include large Companion compositions achieving $1–5 million at the major houses. Paintings from the early 2000s — when KAWS was producing his most formally experimental canvas work — command particular collector interest. Later paintings in the What Party, Ups and Downs, and Tension series have strong institutional and private collector support.

KAWS Prints and Multiples

KAWS prints and multiples — screenprints, offset lithographs, and mixed-media editions — are produced in strictly limited editions through a network of authorised galleries and publishers including AllRightsReserved (Hong Kong), Galerie Perrotin (Paris/New York), and directly through the artist's studio.

Key print series include the WHAT PARTY screenprints, the SHARE series, CHUM compositions, and ongoing Companion figure prints. Each edition is numbered and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Print values have appreciated substantially over the past decade, tracking broader interest in KAWS's market. Signed screenprints from significant series now achieve $5,000–$30,000 on the secondary market.

Authentication for KAWS prints relies on edition certificates and documented purchase provenance from authorised galleries. KAWS does not maintain a central authentication board equivalent to the Comité Picasso or Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board; provenance from an authorised source is the primary verification mechanism.

KAWS Sculptures For Sale

KAWS sculptures range from small 8-inch open-edition resin figures to monumental fibreglass and bronze works that have appeared as public installations in Taipei, Seoul, Hong Kong Harbour, and New York. The KAWS HOLIDAY series — oversized Companion figures in bright primary colours that floated on water or hung from mountain faces — became some of the most widely shared art images of the 2010s.

Key sculpture series include:

• Companion: multiple sizes from 11 inches to life-scale and beyond
• BFF: bear-like figure, highly sought in limited editions
• CHUM: figure derived from Barney from The Flintstones
• HOLIDAY: oversized outdoor installations and their collectible scale equivalents

Bronze sculptures command significant premiums over resin editions of the same subject. The tactile quality of KAWS's bronze work — the weight, the patina, the precision of the casting — has attracted a new category of collector from the sculpture market.

What Makes a KAWS Worth Buying

Early vs. late work: Works from the late 1990s and early 2000s — when KAWS was producing his most original and formally experimental output — carry the highest historical significance and command strong premiums. The early painted Companion canvases, the vinyl toy collaborations with Medicom that initiated the collectibles market, and the first screenprint editions are all historically important.

Colourways: In the figure market, colourway scarcity drives value. Brown/Warm Grey, certain holiday colourways, and first-release variants consistently outperform standard colourways. Black and Grey open edition Companions are the baseline; rare colourways from limited collaborative runs can achieve multiples of the standard price.

Signed vs. unsigned: KAWS's signature on prints and occasionally on figures adds meaningful value, though many major editions are unsigned. Verified signatures (with purchase documentation) are preferred.

Condition and packaging: Mint-in-box, unassembled figures with original packaging are always preferred. Paint chips, display wear, and missing boxes reduce value materially.

Guy Hepner Gallery, 177 Tenth Avenue, New York, offers KAWS figures, prints, paintings, and sculptures for sale with full provenance documentation. We work with collectors from first purchase to major acquisitions and estate planning, and provide confidential valuations for those looking to sell KAWS works from their collections.