Yoshitomo Nara Art

Yoshitomo Nara (Japanese, b. 1959) Hazy, Humid Day, 2022 Offset lithograph Printed in Japan Official exhibition poster print based on the painting of the same name debuted at the Tai...

Yoshitomo Nara - We are punks Mug Small Date of creation: 2011 Medium: Porcelain Edition: Open Size: 65 x Φ85 mm (200ml) Condition: Brand new, inside its custom box Description: A small porcelain mug based on Yoshitomo Nara's We Are Punks (2011), a colour-pencil drawing of a defiant, round-headed child whose expression falls somewhere between a lullaby and a battle cry. The piece belongs to a body of work where Nara channels the raw energy of the punk and folk records he grew up listening to on U.S. Armed Forces radio in rural Aomori, a thread that runs from his earliest sketchbooks to his large-scale canvases and limited editions. Crafted in Hasami ware from Nagasaki Prefecture, the mug is dishwasher and microwave safe. The clay is fired and glazed in Japan using techniques passed down through four centuries of potters in the hills above Nagasaki. The result is a clean white body, light but solid in the hand, with a matte finish that lets the illustration sit naturally on the surface rather than floating under a layer of gloss. Peek inside once you have finished your espresso and you will find one of Nara's girls staring back at you from the bottom of the cup, as if she got there first and has no intention of leaving. It is a small, private encounter: exactly the kind of moment Nara builds into his work. His figures never perform for a crowd; they address you one-on-one, and finding one at the bottom of a coffee cup is about as intimate as it gets. ABOUT THE ARTIST Yoshitomo Nara (奈良美智, b. 1959, Hirosaki) is one of the most influential Japanese artists working today. Round-headed children with piercing gazes populate his canvases and sculptures, images that have gone well beyond the art world to become a broader cultural phenomenon. Childhood in Aomori: Solitude, Nature, and Radio Waves Nara grew up in Hirosaki, a small city in Aomori Prefecture at the northern tip of Honshū. Both parents worked long hours, leaving young Yoshitomo to fend for himself after school. The Japanese have a word for children like him, kagikko, latchkey kids who come home to an empty house and learn to keep their own company. That early acquaintance with solitude runs through every painting. Look at any of Nara's figures and you will find a self-contained being who meets your eye with a steadiness that could be courage or could just as easily be vulnerability. During those solitary years, Western music reached him through the Far East Network (FEN), the U.S. Armed Forces radio station. Rock, folk, and later punk gave him a way to feel before painting ever did. As a young boy he bought his first record, Suzie Q, and has often said that album covers were his earliest art gallery. Later, he would design covers for Shonen Knife, R.E.M., and Bloodthirsty Butchers, and every exhibition he puts on is accompanied by a playlist of his own making. Education: Aichi and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf After earning a BFA (1985) and MFA (1987) at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Nara relocated to Germany to enrol at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the same school that had shaped Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. Under Neo-Expressionist painter A.R. Penck (1991–1993), he received one piece of advice that stuck: "Paint on the canvas as if you are drawing." Bold, pared-back figures, large rounded heads set against bare backgrounds, began to take shape on his canvases. At the Kunstakademie's annual student show in 1992, visitors saw The Girl with the Knife in Her Hand (1991), a painting that crystallised the tension running through all of Nara's work: an apparently innocent girl holding a tiny knife, a gesture he reads not as aggression but as self-defence against a threatening adult world. Once finished with his studies, Nara settled in Cologne in 1994 and set up in a former cotton mill. Cut off by the language barrier, he turned painting into a conversation with himself, and it was in that solitude that the gaze people remember long after leaving the gallery first appeared. Return to Japan and International Acclaim Twelve years later, Nara came back to Japan. I DON'T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME. opened at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2001 and toured five Japanese venues, including Hirosaki. MoMA New York acquired 130 of his drawings around the same time, and the travelling retrospective Nothing Ever Happens (2003–2005) cemented his reputation in the United States. Within the Japanese "New Pop" wave, he shared the stage with artists such as Takashi Murakami, Makoto Aida, and Mariko Mori...

Digital pigment print on Takeo Deep PV Hakou paper and hardback book 27.9 x 22.9 cm Edition of 100 + 5 APs It was produced in Tokyo under the direction of the artist. Each print com...

Banging the Drum DETAILS 27 x 17 inches (unframed), 2020 Offset lithograph 80# Classic Linen Solar White Cover

This Yoshitomo Nara Dog is a smaller scale model of the large one that sits at Mori Museum. It is made of soft vinyl and designed to be used as a bank. It is ...

Mousepad featuring Yoshitomo Nara's Smoking Girl

Full Moon Night (from "In the Floating World" series) Fuji Xerox copy print Signed, dated, and numbered 11/50 in pencil. Image: 29.5 x 41.5 cm. Sheet: 29.5 x 41.5 cm. BSS No. : E-199...

Edition Details: Year: 2019 Class: Art Print Status: Official Released: 10/01/19 Run: 1,000 Technique: Fine Art Lithograph Paper: 80# archival qual...

Beautiful limited edition posters by Yoshitomo Nara for his exhibition at the Hammer Museum. Only available for a limited amount of time where they sold out quickly, edition size unk...

Cosmic Girls: Eyes Opened / Eyes Closed (two works) The pair of offset lithographs in colors, on smooth wove paper, 2008, from the edition of 500, each with the artist's copyright st...

Yoshitomo Nara Midnight Truth, 2017 Offset lithographic poster Stamped with title, artist's name, copyright and year Unnumbered 20 1/2 × 14 1/4 inches Unframed published by N's Yard,...

Star Island (2003), Edition 69/100. Silkscreen on paper. Signed, dated, and numbered on verso. Image: 30 x 30 cm. Sheet: 30 x 30 cm. BSS No. : E-2003-006. Catalogue Raisonne' No. : Y...

Banging the Drum, 2020 by Yoshitomo Nara Offset lithograph in colors, 2020, on 80# Archival Quality Wove Paper, unframed published by Dallas Contempo...

Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959)
Beh!, 2003

Medium: Lithograph on paper (8 plates, 10 colors)
Image: 49.8 × 40.0 cm (1...

Yoshitomo Nara Love from the Sea, 2021 Fine bone china 26.7 cm Edition of 250 comes in bespoke presentation box Yoshitomo Nara, a celebrated contemporary artist hailing from Japan, ...

Yoshitomo Nara - Let's talk about "Glory" Date of creation: 2011 Medium: Porcelain Edition: Open Size: Φ22 mm Condition: Brand new, inside its custom box Description: A Hasami ware porcelain plate reproducing Yoshitomo Nara's Let's Talk About "Glory" (2012), an acrylic-on-canvas painting where one of the artist's trademark children stares out with brow slightly furrowed and mouth set in a line that says she has heard what glory is and remains unconvinced. The original work, measuring roughly life-size, belongs to the period following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, when Nara's palette softened, his paint layers multiplied, and the angry scowls of his earlier figures gave way to a different register: heavy-lidded, searching, charged. "I was so depressed that I couldn't help feeling that what I'd been doing was totally meaningless," he later recalled. When the brushes finally came back out, the defiant scowls had gone. What replaced them was a gaze that holds more weight precisely because it asks for less. No raised fist, no bared fangs — just a pair of eyes that have seen something and are still deciding what to make of it. Like the rest of Nara's Hasami porcelain series, this plate is crafted in Nagasaki Prefecture, home to one of Japan's oldest ceramic traditions. Smooth and surprisingly heavy for its size, the body holds a print sharp enough to preserve the layered, almost translucent quality of Nara's post-2011 palette — the soft greens and muted flesh tones that replaced the flat, punchy colours of his earlier work. ABOUT THE ARTIST Yoshitomo Nara (奈良美智, b. 1959, Hirosaki) is one of the most influential Japanese artists working today. Round-headed children with piercing gazes populate his canvases and sculptures, images that have gone well beyond the art world to become a broader cultural phenomenon. Childhood in Aomori: Solitude, Nature, and Radio Waves Nara grew up in Hirosaki, a small city in Aomori Prefecture at the northern tip of Honshū. Both parents worked long hours, leaving young Yoshitomo to fend for himself after school. The Japanese have a word for children like him, kagikko, latchkey kids who come home to an empty house and learn to keep their own company. That early acquaintance with solitude runs through every painting. Look at any of Nara's figures and you will find a self-contained being who meets your eye with a steadiness that could be courage or could just as easily be vulnerability. During those solitary years, Western music reached him through the Far East Network (FEN), the U.S. Armed Forces radio station. Rock, folk, and later punk gave him a way to feel before painting ever did. As a young boy he bought his first record, Suzie Q, and has often said that album covers were his earliest art gallery. Later, he would design covers for Shonen Knife, R.E.M., and Bloodthirsty Butchers, and every exhibition he puts on is accompanied by a playlist of his own making. Education: Aichi and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf After earning a BFA (1985) and MFA (1987) at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Nara relocated to Germany to enrol at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the same school that had shaped Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. Under Neo-Expressionist painter A.R. Penck (1991–1993), he received one piece of advice that stuck: "Paint on the canvas as if you are drawing." Bold, pared-back figures, large rounded heads set against bare backgrounds, began to take shape on his canvases. At the Kunstakademie's annual student show in 1992, visitors saw The Girl with the Knife in Her Hand (1991), a painting that crystallised the tension running through all of Nara's work: an apparently innocent girl holding a tiny knife, a gesture he reads not as aggression but as self-defence against a threatening adult world. Once finished with his studies, Nara settled in Cologne in 1994 and set up in a former cotton mill. Cut off by the language barrier, he turned painting into a conversation with himself, and it was in that solitude that the gaze people remember long after leaving the gallery first appeared. Return to Japan and International Acclaim Twelve years later, Nara came back to Japan. I DON'T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME. opened at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2001 and toured five Japanese venues, including Hirosaki. MoMA New York acquired 130 of his drawings around the same time, and the travelling retrospective Nothing Ever Happens (2003–2005) cemented his reputation in the United States. Within the Japanese "New Pop" wave, he shared the stage with artists such as Takashi Murakami, Makoto Aida, and Mariko Mori...

Colour offset lithograph on paper, edited in 2020. Open Edition Not signed. Paper size: 68,6 x 43,2 cm Very good conditions. We offer professional packaging and tracked shipping wi...

DETAILS: 27 x 17 inches 2020 Offset lithograph 80# Classic Linen Solar White Cover

This plush doll by Yoshitomo Nara is of his very well known children, with their expression of innocence combined with pessimism. The hat is knitted and the...

YOSHITOMO NARA MISS SPRING, 2012/21 Digital Pigment Print on Takeo Deep PV Hakou paper 27.9 x 22.9 cm Edition of 100 (numbered 72/100 on the ARTSPACE certificate of authenticity). Ha...

Yoshitomo Nara - We are punks Mug Large Date of creation: 2011 Medium: Porcelain Edition: Open Size: 95 x Φ85 mm (300ml) Condition: Brand new, inside its custom box Description: The big sibling in Yoshitomo Nara's We Are Punks porcelain series, this 300 cc mug features a vampire-fanged girl peering over a wall on its side with the quiet menace of someone who arrived first and has no intention of leaving. "We Are Punks" is printed on the exterior as both a title and a statement of intent. The image derives from Nara's 2011 colour-pencil drawing of the same name, part of a practice where childhood defiance and subcultural energy merge into a visual language recognisable across a room. Made in Hasami ware from Nagasaki Prefecture, the mug is fired, glazed and finished in Japan. Hasami potters developed their craft supplying everyday tableware to the domestic market, which means the porcelain is built to be used, not merely admired. It is microwave and dishwasher safe. The white ground is clean and unglazed on the outside where the illustration sits, giving the print a tactile, almost paper-like quality that feels closer to a drawing than to a mass-produced transfer. At 300 cc it holds enough coffee to start the morning with the same stubborn composure Nara's children have been modelling for over three decades. Pair it with the small mug: the two stack together and, like any well-conceived double act, gain from being seen as a set. That stacking detail is not accidental. Nara has long been interested in objects that nest inside one another. His room-sized installations are built as huts and cabins that shelter smaller works, creating a mise en abyme of intimacy. Two mugs sitting one inside the other carry a faint echo of that idea, scaled down to the kitchen shelf. ABOUT THE ARTIST Yoshitomo Nara (奈良美智, b. 1959, Hirosaki) is one of the most influential Japanese artists working today. Round-headed children with piercing gazes populate his canvases and sculptures, images that have gone well beyond the art world to become a broader cultural phenomenon. Childhood in Aomori: Solitude, Nature, and Radio Waves Nara grew up in Hirosaki, a small city in Aomori Prefecture at the northern tip of Honshū. Both parents worked long hours, leaving young Yoshitomo to fend for himself after school. The Japanese have a word for children like him, kagikko, latchkey kids who come home to an empty house and learn to keep their own company. That early acquaintance with solitude runs through every painting. Look at any of Nara's figures and you will find a self-contained being who meets your eye with a steadiness that could be courage or could just as easily be vulnerability. During those solitary years, Western music reached him through the Far East Network (FEN), the U.S. Armed Forces radio station. Rock, folk, and later punk gave him a way to feel before painting ever did. As a young boy he bought his first record, Suzie Q, and has often said that album covers were his earliest art gallery. Later, he would design covers for Shonen Knife, R.E.M., and Bloodthirsty Butchers, and every exhibition he puts on is accompanied by a playlist of his own making. Education: Aichi and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf After earning a BFA (1985) and MFA (1987) at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Nara relocated to Germany to enrol at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the same school that had shaped Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. Under Neo-Expressionist painter A.R. Penck (1991–1993), he received one piece of advice that stuck: "Paint on the canvas as if you are drawing." Bold, pared-back figures, large rounded heads set against bare backgrounds, began to take shape on his canvases. At the Kunstakademie's annual student show in 1992, visitors saw The Girl with the Knife in Her Hand (1991), a painting that crystallised the tension running through all of Nara's work: an apparently innocent girl holding a tiny knife, a gesture he reads not as aggression but as self-defence against a threatening adult world. Once finished with his studies, Nara settled in Cologne in 1994 and set up in a former cotton mill. Cut off by the language barrier, he turned painting into a conversation with himself, and it was in that solitude that the gaze people remember long after leaving the gallery first appeared. Return to Japan and International Acclaim Twelve years later, Nara came back to Japan. I DON'T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME. opened at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2001 and toured five Japanese venues, including Hirosaki. MoMA New York acquired 130 of his drawings around the same time, and the travelling retrospective Nothing Ever Happens (2003–2005) cemented his reputation in the United States. Within the Japanese "New Pop" wave, he shared the stage with artists such as Takashi Murakami, Makoto Aida, and Mariko Mori...

Beautiful Pup Cup designed by Yoshitomo Nara. Brand new and comes with original packaging.

Yoshitomo Nara, Broken Treasures, 2012 Woodcut Print in Colours 42.2 x 29.5 cm 16.6 x 11.6 in Edition 14 of 50 Hand-signed, dated and numbered by the artist Unframed - please c...

2005 Wood Edition of 100 Limited Edition made by VILAC

Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959)
On the F-Word, 2002

Medium: Intaglio on paper (photogravure and aquatint; 4 plates, 7 colors)

Yoshitomo Nara (Japanese, born 1959) Girl in the Moon, 2022 Medium: Porcelain plate (fine bone china) Dimensions: 10 1/2 in diameter 26.7 cm diameter Edition of 250: Printed signatu...

Rare vintage 2001 12 inch vinyl record album with cover designed by Yoshitomo Nara. The front cover is printed to the very edges with nothing other than and image of Nara's artwork, ...

Two pigment prints Edition 1 of 7 32.1 x 32.1 cm (12.6 x 12.6 in) Each Framed: 34.6 x 67.6 x 3.8 cm, 13.6 x 13.6 x 1.5 in Signed and numbered on the back Mint Framed with Museum Acry...

Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959)
Straight Jacket, 2002

Medium: Etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper (1 color intaglio)
Image: 29.5 × 24.5 cm...

This work by Yoshitomo Nara is a rare exhibition poster from 2002 featuring Yoshitomo Nara's interpretation of the famous Doraemon character in ...

Fire By Yoshitomo Nara 2025 Bamboo 23 x 3.5 x 1.5 cm

Mini Mori Girl By Yoshitomo Nara 2012 Resin, wood and plastic sculpture 11.5 x 8 x 8 cm Edition of 1000 Unboxed

Extremely rare Yoshitomo Nara poster produced by Japanese publisher Mitsumura Book Publishing Co. as a sales promotional poster for teachers. Was not available to the public and we have never seen any others anywhere. Much more rare than the Yoshitomo Nara Cosmic...

Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959, Japanese) and Hiroshi Sugito (b. 1970, Japanese) Untitled (Omaha), 2005 Medium: Lithograph on paper Dimensions: 53.5 x 62.5 cm Edition of 100 + 10 AP: Hand-s...

Marching on a Butterbur Leaf

This 123 Drumming Girl Collectible Object exemplifies the aesthetic of its creator, Yoshitomo Nara: naive and cute but with an edgy undercurrent driven by the artist’s avid interest ...

Yoshitomo Nara (1959)
What’s Going On? (from the series In the Floating World), 1999

Medium: Fuji Xer...

This 123 Drumming Girl Collectible Object exemplifies the aesthetic of its creator, Yoshitomo Nara: naive and cute but with an edgy undercurrent dri...

This 123 Drumming Girl Collectible Object exemplifies the aesthetic of its creator, Yoshitomo Nara: naive and cute but with an edgy undercurrent dri...

Banging the Drum 27 x 17 inches , 2020 Offset lithograph "Real One by Yoshitomo Nara Dallas Contemporary Release" 2020 15 x 17 in 73.7 × 63.5 cm

Limited edition vinyl record designed by Yoshitomo Nara. Green vinyl edition of 500

Yoshitomo Nara (1959, Japanese) Marching on a Butterbur Leaf, 2019 Medium: Offset print on archival quality paper (incl. 5 stickers, as issued) Dimensions: 61 × 45.7 cm (24 × 18 in) ...

Yoshitomo Nara (1959)
Slash with a Knife (from the series In the Floating World), 1999

Medium: Color xerox print after a reworked...

Time Goes on (2002–2004) by Yoshitomo Nara 1 color intaglio (photogravure, aquatint) on paper 48 x 38 CM (sheet) Ed. 52, A.P. 11 Literature: Catalogue Raisonné: YNF3960 Yoshitomo N...

Yoshitomo Nara No Fun! from "In the Floating World", 1999 Fuji Xerox copy on wove paper Edition 23 of 50 Image size 41.5 × 30 cm Frame size 57.5 x 45 x 3 cm Signed, dated and numbere...

Yoshitomo Nara and Hiroshi Sugito Untitled (2005), Edition 26/100. Lithograph in colours on wove paper. Image: 29.6 x 22.8 cm. Sheet: 42.7 x 33 cm. Framed: 47.6 x 37.7 x 2.4 cm. Hand...

Marching on a Butterbur Leaf, 2019 by Yoshitomo Nara Offset lithograph in colors, 2019, on 80# Archival Quality Wove Paper, unframed published by Dallas Contemporary 24.02 x 17.99 ...

Yoshitomo Nara Banging the Drum, Marching on a Butterbur Leaf, Real One: A set of 3 offset lithographs published by Dallas Contemporary...