Kenny Scharf valuation
Cosmic cartoon faces and customised junk, from the East Village of Haring and Basquiat.
Kenny Scharf was born in Los Angeles in 1958, studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and shared a loft with Keith Haring and, for a time, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
What a work by Kenny Scharf is worth
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Bio
Kenny Scharf was born in Los Angeles in 1958, studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and shared a loft with Keith Haring and, for a time, Jean-Michel Basquiat. His vocabulary comes from the Jetsons, the Flintstones and mid-century American futurism: grinning cosmic faces, blobs and planets in fluorescent colour. The Cosmic Caverns are entire rooms customised with black light, found objects and fluorescent paint; the Customized works apply the same treatment to televisions, telephones and household appliances. He has painted murals worldwide and continues to work in Los Angeles.
Unique paintings on canvas lead the market, with the 1980s work well ahead of later production and the large Jetsons and cosmic subjects the most sought. Customised objects raise practical questions: they incorporate obsolete consumer electronics, plastics that yellow and fluorescent pigments that fade badly under light, and none of that is straightforward to conserve. There is a substantial print output and a quantity of collaborative product and merchandise. Fluorescent and day-glo surfaces are the recurring condition issue and light history matters.
The Fun Gallery, Shafrazi and Luna Luna
Scharf's first Cosmic Cavern, the Cosmic Closet, was made in 1981 in the Times Square apartment he shared with Keith Haring. He showed at the Fun Gallery in 1981 and with Tony Shafrazi from 1983, and the Whitney Museum chose him for its Biennial in 1985. In 1987 he designed a swing carousel for André Heller's Luna Luna, the artists' amusement park in Hamburg.
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles gave him a solo exhibition in 2015, and his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney in New York. For a painting, the title, the date and the gallery it came from are what identify it.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
