Kenny Scharf at the WeHo Library April 20, 2018 – Posted in: Kenny Scharf – Tags: ,

In the late 1970s, Kenny Scharf studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he was exposed to subway graffiti and the downtown art scene. He began to work in spray paint, combining it with the traditional media he used in art school. Scharf graduated from SVA in 1980, and a year later he was given a solo show at the famed FUN Gallery in New York. He became one of the principal figures on the East Village art scene, painting both in the streets and for galleries such as Tony Shafrazi, which showed Scharf’s work in 1983. The following year, the Whitney Museum of American Art included Scharf in its biennial. Scharf’s cartoonish renditions of Jetsons and Flintstones characters, distorted into lava lamp–like shapes and floating on wild, outer-space backgrounds, are often painted on huge, wall-size canvases. His aesthetic has lent itself to popular applications, as well, including nightclub décor, clothing, toys, and album covers for pop groups such as the B-52s. Scharf recently returned to the streets of New York, painting a series of store gates with his signature characters and a large mural at the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery—a wall he first painted in collaboration with other FUN Gallery artists in the early 1980s.

[Source: WeHo.Org]

  1. LOCATION

    West Hollywood, CA
    N Robertston Blvd / El Tovar Pl