Kenny Scharf (American, b. 1958) is a painter whose do-it-yourself practice spans painting, sculpture, fashion, video, performance art and street art. He took part in New York City's East Village art scene of the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. His works often include pop culture icons such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons, or caricatures of middle-class Americans in an apocalyptic science fiction setting.
Scharf grew up in Southern California after World War II and was fascinated by television and the futuristic promise of modern design. During the 1980s the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger mounted shows for painters including Scharf. From 1985 to 1988 Absolut commissioned ads from artists, among them Scharf, Keith Haring and Ed Ruscha. In 1986 he designed a vibrantly colored room at the Palladium nightclub in New York. His two- and three-dimensional neon compositions stood in the entrance foyer of the exhibition “Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties”.
