One of the most popular contemporary artists in Japan, Yoshitomo Nara is best known for his sinister imagery of children and animals. His flat, two-dimensional characters display a range of negative emotions evoking anger, sadness, even revenge while remaining vulnerable to the viewer. Provocative in nature, the children typically wield objects such as knives and cigarettes, seemingly posing contrast to the rigidness of Japanese social constructs.

Nara was born and raised in a rural village of northern Japan. Nature, music, and the solitude of his childhood had a profound impact on how he sees the world and the viewpoint he brings to his work. After graduating with his MFA from the Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts, Japan he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf during the late 1980s. He remained in Germany after graduation in 1993 and opened a studio in Cologne. Nara has been exhibiting his paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, and collections of merchandise featuring his characters internationally since 2000. Nara has published multiple books throughout his career including The Lonesome Puppy (2008), a children’s book, and the Yoshitomo Nara Photo Book 2003-2012 (2012), a collection of ephemera from his life and travels.

His work is held in the esteemed collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain among many others. He currently lives and works in Tokyo.

Yoshitomo Nara is represented by The Pace Gallery, New York, NY.

The 60-year-old Yoshitomo Nara just had a huge jump for his work at auction. Last year, Sotheby’s Hong Kong set a new auction record for Nara's work, selling one of his paintings from 2000 for about $25 million. That piece, Knife Behind Back (2000), was first sold for just $20,000 in 2001.

Nara's previous record was a paltry (comparatively speaking) $4 million, a figure reached in May 2000 at Christie’s in Hong Kong. A number of other works by the artist have traded at auction in recent years in the $3 million range, but the new $25 million result places him in a lofty field inhabited by very few living artists (or historical artists, for that matter).

SELECT RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2024
'Yoshitomo Nara', Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany (11/23/2024 - 4/27/2025)
'Yoshitomo Nara: I Draw the Line', BLUM, Tokyo, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara', Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain

2023
'Yoshitomo Nara: The Bootleg Drawings 1988 – 2023', Pace Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland
'Yoshitomo Nara: The Beginning Place', Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara: Woodcuts, 2010 - 2022', Pace Prints, New York, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara: All My Little Words', Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria
'Yoshitomo Nara: Dog-o-rama', 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara: Reach Out to The Moon, Even If We Can't', The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

2022
'Yoshitomo Nara', Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'Yoshitomo Nara', Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
'Yoshitomo Nara', Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China

2021
'Yoshitomo Nara: Pinacoteca', Pace Gallery, London, UK
'Yoshitomo Nara', Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
'Yoshitomo Nara: I Forgot Their Names and Often Can't Remember Their Faces but Remember Their Voices Well', Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX

2020
'Yoshitomo Nara: After all I'm cosmic dust', Pace Gallery, New York, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara: After all I'm cosmic dust', Pace Gallery, East Hampton, NY

2019
'Yoshitomo Nara: Drawings Last 31 Years', Château la Coste, Le Puy Ste Réparade, France

2018
'Yoshitomo Nara: Ceramic Works and...', Pace Gallery, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

2017
'Yoshitomo Nara: For Better or Worse', Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota, Aichi, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara: Thinker', Pace Gallery, New York, NY

2016
'Yoshitomo Nara: New Works', Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK
'Yoshitomo Nara', Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE), Taipei, Taiwan

2015
'Yoshitomo Nara: Life is Only One',  Asia Society, Hong Kong Central, China
'Yoshitomo Nara', Johnen Galerie, Berlin, Germany
'Yoshitomo Nara: Shallow Puddles', Blum & Poe, Tokyo, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara: Greetings from a Place in My Heart', ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark

2014
'Yoshitomo Nara: Greetings from a Place in My Heart', Dairy Art Centre, London, UK

2013
'Yoshitomo Nara: a bit like you and me...', Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan

2012
'Yoshitomo Nara: a bit like you and me...', Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori City, Japan 
'Yoshitomo Nara: The Little Little House in The Blue Woods', Towada Art Center, Aomori City, Japan 
'Yoshitomo Nara: Prints', 8/ ART Gallery/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 
'Yoshitomo Nara: a bit like you and me...', Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan

2011
'Yoshitomo Nara: Print Works', Roppongi Hills Art & Design Store Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2010
'Yoshitomo Nara: New Editions', Pace Prints, New York, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool', Asia Society, New York, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara: Ceramic Works', Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
'Garden of Painting: Japanese Art of the 00s' (group exhibition), The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

2009
'Yoshitomo Nara + YNG: The Crated Rooms in Iceland', Reykjavík Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland 
'Walking in My Mind' (group exhibition), Hayward Gallery, London, UK
'Yoshitomo Nara', Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY

2008
'Yoshitomo Nara', Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA
'Yoshitomo Nara + graf', BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK 
'Yoshitomo Nara', Galerie Meyer & Kainer, Vienna, Austria
'Yoshitomo Nara', Galerie Zink, Münich, Germany

2007
'Yoshitomo Nara', Johnen + Schöttle, Köln, Germany
'Yoshitomo Nara + graf', CAC Málaga, Málaga, Spain
'Yoshitomo Nara', GEM - Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Den Haag, The Netherlands
'Yoshitomo Nara + graf: BARACKE', Galerie Zink, Münich, Germany

2006
'Yoshitomo Nara + graf: A to Z', Yoshi Brick Brew House, Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara', Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK

2005
'Yoshitomo Nara', Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara: From the Depth of My Drawer', Rodin Gallery, Seoul, Korea
'Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens', Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, HI
'Yoshitomo Nara und Hiroshi Sugito: Over the Rainbow', K21 (Kunstsammlung im Ständehaus), Düsseldorf, Germany

2004
'Yoshitomo Nara und Hiroshi Sugito: Over the Rainbow', Pinakothek der Moderne, Münich, Germany
'Yoshitomo Nara und Hiroshi Sugito: somewhere...', Galerie Zink & Gegner, Münich, Germany
'Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens', Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (traveled to Institute of Contemporay Art Philadelphia, PA; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO)
'Yoshitomo Nara: Nowhere Land', Johnen + Schöttle, Köln, Germany
'Yoshitomo Nara: From the Depth of My Drawer', Kanazu Forest of Creation Museum, Hukui, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara', Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna, Austria
'Yoshitomo Nara: New Works 2004', Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA

2003
'Yoshitomo Nara: New Drawings', Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
'Yoshitomo Nara', Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK
'Yoshitomo Nara', Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA

2002
'Contemporary Drawings: Eight Propositions' (group exhibition), MoMA QNS, NY
'Yoshitomo Nara', Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY

2001
'Yoshitomo Nara: in those days', Hakutosha, Nagoya, Japan
'I Don't Mind, If You Forget Me', Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (traveled to Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Ashiya City Museum of Art, Asahikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Aomori Museum of Art)
'Yoshitomo Nara: Drawings', Collette, Paris, France
'Clear For Landing', Galerie Michael Zink, Münich, Germany

2000
'Lullaby Supermarket', Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA
'Walk on', Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL

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