'IT'S BETTER TO BE A PIRATE THAN TO JOIN THE NAVY.' KARE, SUSAN. b. 1954. An Apple Jolly Roger Pirate Flag. 2015. Acrylic paint on vinyl canvas flag with metal gromets. 901 x 1502 mm (36 x 60 in), featuring a Jolly Roger skull and cross bones design with the eyepatch being the Apple Computer rainbow apple logo, signed and dated ('Susan D. Kare 2015') in the lower left corner. Provenance: Purchased directly from Susan Kare at Susan Kare Design/ Kare Prints (signed by Kare, with original shipping tube); Purchased from the original owner by our consignor. LIMITED EDITION one of up to 500 examples HAND-PAINTED BY THE ORIGINAL ARTIST, SUSAN KARE. Susan Kare is best known as the revolutionary graphic design artist who created many of the original fonts and pixel art icons for the Apple operating software in the 1980s. Many of Kare's designs for Apple, including her sketchbook, were featured in the 2015 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, This is for Everyone. She shared Steve Jobs's vision that the Macintosh interface should be simple and intuitive but also whimsical and engaging (Isaacson p. 131). These designs utilized the bitmapped screen technology that Apple computers brought to the home computing market with the introduction of Apple-1. This bitmapped screen allowed for the lighting up of individual pixels in order to make a more visual and intuitive user interface that people could interact with using a mouse, whereas most computers up until that point had a text-based interface that required users to input commands with a keyboard. After being removed from the Lisa project in 1981, Steve Jobs took control of the development of the Macintosh line of computers. Jobs and the Macintosh team moved into the offices of Bandley 3 in 1983, and their rebellious spirit put them at odds with the team working to develop the Lisa. This spirit was encouraged by Jobs who told them, 'It's better to be a pirate than to join the navy' (Isaacson p. 144). Inspired by this, one of the programmers for the Macintosh project, Steve Capps, cut a piece of black cloth and asked Kare to paint a Jolly Roger flag. She did so, replacing the eyepatch with the iconic Apple rainbow logo which the company used from 1977 until 1998. They raised the flag over the offices at Bandley 3, but it was taken down by members of the Lisa project after just a few weeks. Capps and other members of the Macintosh team lead their own mission to recover the flag and return it to its rightful spot above Bandley 3, where it flew throughout the duration of the Macintosh's development. Jobs later recalled, 'We were the renegades, and we wanted people to know it' (Isaacson p. 145). In late 2014, Kare began to sell recreations of the legendary Apple Jolly Roger, hand-painted and limited to a total edition of 500, making this an early example from the series. The flag is emblematic of the swashbuckling ethos of Apple and Steve Jobs to 'Think Different' that has allowed the company to revolutionize the computing and design worlds time and time again, propelling them to not just become one of the most successful companies of all times, but also a cultural icon. Walter Isaacson. Steve Jobs, 2011. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing