Knife Behind Back, a monumental painting featuring Yoshitomo Nara's well-known motif of a little girl, is expected to fetch in excess of HK$50m (US$6.3m) at Sotheby's Hong Kong on 6 October. It will be Nara's most expensive work of art ever sold at auction and set a new record for the Japanese contemporary artist.
Yoshitomo Nara's Knife Behind Back is expected to fetch in excess of HK$50m
Yoshitomo Nara
Measuring 234x208cm, Knife Behind Back ranks amongst the largest works on canvas by the artist to appear at auction. The painting’s title broadcasts the presence of a weapon, whose absence in the image is made more marked and more menacing. Not only is there a knife, but it is hidden with intent, primed for attack. Absence thus takes on not only a presence of its own but an amplified one – the knife’s threat made infinitely more ominous in its deliberate concealment – a strategy that underscores the unexpected insurgent power of children and the associated radical potentiality of the insignificant, the innocent, the fictionary, and the imagined.
Knife Behind Back was executed in the watershed year of 2000 – the year Nara finally returned to Japan after twelve years abroad in Germany. In 1988, the year after he graduated from the Aichi University of the Arts, Nara undertook a six-year artistic apprenticeship at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under the mentorship of A.R. Penck and thereafter stayed in Cologne until 2000. In the mid-1990s, Nara was already showing works occasionally in Nagoya and Tokyo. The artist’s paintings in this period feature thick black outlines, a richly vibrant palette reminiscent of Neo-Expressionism, and the flat, rough-hewn or ‘primitive’ aesthetic of sketches, drawings, and manga; nevertheless, they already reveal hallmarks that define his mature aesthetic.
A close up at Knife Behind Back
Yoshitomo Nara's The Girl with the Knife in Her Hand, 1991, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco
Towards the late 1990s, Nara gradually developed and refined his painterly technique: his surface work became increasingly fine, emanating gentle depth and luminosity. The loneliness of living abroad not only catapulted the artist back to the days of acute loneliness in his childhood. Further pronounced shifts occurred in Nara’s works from 2000 onwards, coinciding with the artist’s return to his native land. First, employing large format canvases, Nara commenced full body portraits of little girls set against luminous pearly grounds that have since become highly distinctive for the artist.
Yoshitomo Nara's Sleepless Night (Cat) that sold for HK$34.92m holds the artist's current auction record
Yoshitomo Nara's auction record was set this spring at Christie's Hong Kong when his 1999 painting titled Sleepless Night (Cat) was sold for HK$34.92m after premium.
As Yoshitomo Nara artworks have gained increasing popularity among collectors, especially Asian collectors, this season, various auction houses are bringing some of his amazing works from oil on canvas, installation art to his drawing penned on a HK$100 banknote. Below is a full list of Nara's works offered in Hong Kong this season.
Artworks by Yoshitomo Nara offered in Hong Kong Autumn Sale Week 2019
Knife Behind Back｜Property from a Prestigious European Collection
Auction house: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Lot no: 1142
Created in: 2000
Size: 234 x 208cm
Provenance:
- Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
- Private Collection, California
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: in excess of HK$50m
Not Everything but/ Green House
Auction house: Poly Auction Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 165
Created in: 2009
Size: 320 × 320 × 670cm
Within:
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, Painted in 2009, acrylic on wood panel, 145.8 x 126.5 cm. (57 1/2 x 49 3/4 in.)
- 575 ready-made plush toys
Provenance:
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
- Acquired from the above gallery by the present owner
- PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT ASIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 30,000,000
Not Everything but/ Orange House
Auction house: Poly Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 166
Created in: 2009
Size: 321 x 321 x 470.5cm
Within:
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, acrylic on wood panel (double-sided painting), 45.1 x 38 cm. (17 3/4 x 15 in.)
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, acrylic on wood panel, 40 x 32 cm. (15 3/4 x 12 1/2 in.)
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, acrylic on wood panel, 20 x 18 cm. (7 1/2 x 7 in.)
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, acrylic on wood panel, 28 x 30 cm. (11 x 11 3/4 in.)
- Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled, twelve crayon on paper (seven double-sided drawings), size variable from 12 x 16.2 cm. (4 3/4 x 6 1/2 in.) to 24 x 35 cm. (9 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.)
- one painted portable boombox
- three ready-made plush toys
- twenty two crayons
Provenance:
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
- Acquired from the above gallery by the present owner
- PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT ASIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 30,000,000
Midnight Vampire
Auction house: China Guardian Hong Kong
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 18
Created in: 2010
Size: 73 x 60.5cm
Provenance:
- Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo
- Private Collection, Europe
- 25 Nov 2017, Christie's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 53
- Important Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$18,000,000 - 25,000,000
Looking at You
Auction house: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Lot no.: 1134
Created in: 2007
Size: 91 x 73cm
Provenance:
- Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$14,000,000 - 22,000,000
Night Cat
Auction House: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 539
Created in: 1999
Size: 60 x 50cm
Provenance:
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
- The Kenneth L. Freed Collection, Massachusetts
- Christie's, New York, 23 September 2003, Lot 85
- Sotheby's, New York, 15 May 2008, Lot 491
- Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 4 April 2011, Lot 992
- Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 6 October 2014, Lot 874
- Acquired from the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Music box
Auction house: Poly Auction Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 167
Created in: 1994
Size: 55 x 55cm
Provenance: Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$3,000,000 - 5,000,000
O.T
Auction House: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 540
Created in: 1994
Size: 72 x 78cm
- Provenance:
- Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo
- Private Collection, Japan
- Christie's, Hong Kong, 31 May 2015, Lot 125
- Acquired from the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$2,200,000 - 3,200,000
Baby Baby I Never Dream｜Hand-painted ceramic plate
Auction house: China Guardian Hong Kong
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 15
Created in: 2007
Size: 92.6 x 92.6 x 8.2cm
Provenance:
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, USA
- 23 Mar 2017, Christie's Hong Kong First Open Auction, Lot 28
- Important Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Untitled (Don’t Laugh) (Double-sided painting)
Auction House: China Guardian
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 17
Created in: 1999-2002
Size: 21 x 15cm
Provenance:
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
- Important Private Collection, Asia
- 26 Nov 2017, Christie's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 253
- Important Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$480,000 - 580,000
Sun, Earth and Many Stars
Auction house: China Guardian
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 16
Created in: 1995
Size: 25.8 x 36.3cm
Provenance:
- Hakutosha Gallery, Nagoya
- Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$350,000 - 450,000
Untitled
Auction house: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 528
Created in: 2008
Size: 15.5 x 21.6cm
Provenance:
- Private Collection, Los Angeles
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$250,000 - 350,000
Dream Time
Auction house: China Guardian
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 14
Created in: 2015
Size: 41.9 x 29.2cm
Provenance:
- Blum & Poe Gallery, Tokyo
- 26 Nov 2017, Christie's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 356
- Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$150,000 - 250,000
Untitled｜pen on Hong Kong Dollar bill
Auction house: Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Sale: Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 529
Created in: 2001
Size: 7.6 x 15.2cm
Provenance:
- Gifted from the artist to the present owner in 2011
Estimate: HK$30,000 - 40,000
Aomori Dog Saving Jar (White and Blue), Pupcup, Mori Girl Candle, Lightened Dog (Black and White), Dolly Candy Jar (Set of eleven pieces)
Auction house: China Guardian
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Lot no.: 13
Provenance: Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$16,000 - 25,000
Auction details
Sotheby's Hong Kong
Venue: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Sale: Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Sale date: 6 October 2019｜7pm
Sale: Contemporary Art
Sale date: 7 October 2017｜10:30am
Poly Auction Hong Kong
Venue: St. Regis Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Art
Sale date: 6 October 2019｜11:00am
China Guardian Hong Kong
Venue: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Sale: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art
Sale date: 7 October 2019｜2pm