In 1995, Kenny Scharf turned a newsstand in SoHo into the Scharf Schak, which sold everything from 50-cent postcards to $80 Swatch watches bearing his artwork. “It was fun and cool, but it was not, let’s say, financially smart,” he says. “We made no money—like $15 a day.” Today, the concept continues in the form of a digital shop. David Turner/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images.
The first day Kenny Scharf visited New York, in 1977, he found himself at Food, the fabled artist-run SoHo restaurant, when a commotion outside alerted him to the fact that Faye Dunaway was running down the street in a split skirt, filming a scene for the fashion thriller. “That was so much more Hollywood than anything I remember growing up,” says Scharf, who was raised in Los Angeles and attended Beverly Hills High School with the children of multiple stars. Less than a year later, he returned to Manhattan to study at the School of Visual Arts, drawn by the allure of Andy Warhol and the combination of art, music, and nightlif