The work for auction today, King of Cat, was completed in 1992. Today, his reputation in the international arts world is at an all-time high, while his works are coveted by collectors all over the globe. Since holding his first retrospective exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2011, Yoshitomo Nara has been invited to hold personal exhibitions at a number of important galleries both in Japan and abroad, including such places as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Nara’s works are as elegant as traditional Japanese haiku and waka (types of poems): in just a few simple details, they instantly beguile the world. Their simultaneously mischievous and lonely expressions cause viewers to feel pity and affection for marginal communities.

His brush injects his subjects - often children and animals - with a personality that leaps off the canvas. Yoshitomo Nara is one of Japan’s leading contemporary artists. Kristin Chambers, curator at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art “Through the faces of his subjects, Nara invites us to linger, to leave our rules at the door, and enter the more fluid and uninhibited world of children.” Yoshitomo Nara’s Autobiographical Work, King of Cat Note: This work is attached with a label from New York Opera Gallery on the reverseĮmerging from the Bramble and Climbing to the top of the Arts World: Dated, signed in English, titled in Chinese and English on the reverseĢ011, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, Volume 1: Paintings, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs 1984-2010, Bijutsu Publishing House, Tokyo, p.

Yoshitomo Nara by Kristin Chambers