Yoshitomo Nara

executed in 2007

Johnen + Schöttle, Köln
Acquired by the present owner from the above

This work is an unique piece with no other edtion, and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the artist.

Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works 1984 - 2010, Bijutsu Shuppan Sha, Tokyo, Japan, 2011, p. 287

This work is generally in good condition. There is a small speck of paint loss near the puppy's left eye.
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World of Wonders
Yoshitomo Nara 

“I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!” Such were the firm words uttered by the protagonist of J.M. Barrie’s seminal works, Peter Pan. Peter’s resolve to remain a child; his championing of childhood; his magical entourage of fairies, pirates, mermaids; the mystical aura of Neverland, are all elements of the much-loved series, and here, their essence can be all the more strongly felt in the artistic language of renowned Japanese artists—and perhaps modern day Peter Pans—Yoshitomo Nara and Hiroshi Sugito. The mesmerising Marianne was a collaborative effort between Nara and Sugito painted in 2004, produced specially for their joint collection, “Over the Rainbow”, a body of no more than forty paintings, focusing on the theme of the magical Land of Oz, from which the title of the assemblage of works comes. Also on offer is the strong and bold-coloured Rock You!, which further echoes the sentiments of Barrie’s hero, as the playful and mischievous child in the centre of the piece stands resolutely in defence of her own youth. In a similarly dreamlike vein is Big Pup Head : instantly recognisable as an ambassador for Nara’s oeuvre, the pup is representative of the artist’s memories of childhood.

 

It is indeed not an exaggeration to say that Yoshitomo Nara is an artist who enjoys rock star status in the world of Contemporary Asian Art. Since his major solo show in 1995, “In the Deepest Puddle”, put on at SCAI the Bathhouse in Tokyo, Nara’s position as a post-war Japanese artist was solidified. The artist’s investigation and re-examination of figurative painting within a contemporary context; his reworking of traditional Japanese forms; his seamless unification of Eastern and Western themes; his tireless experimentation of different media;  have not only captured the hearts of devoted fans, but have likewise caught the attention of prominent museums across the globe. Aside from a slew of significant international group shows, Nara’s repertoire of solo exhibitions includes shows at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, as well as the Aomori Museum of Art in the artist’s hometown. The Museum of Modern Art was also responsible for buying two major collections of Nara’s works in the early 2000s. In spite of all this however, Yoshitomo Nara’s artwork remains refreshingly accessible, capturing candid moments of childhood and magic, filling canvases with puppies and large-headed girls.

 

Eleven years his junior, Nara’s once-pupil, Hiroshi Sugito is an artist who has received international acclaim for his mysterious and pensive works, which align Western techniques with his classical training in Japanese Nihonga. Sugito has exhibited extensively worldwide, including at the eighth International Istanbul Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and Ohara Museum of Art in Tokyo. The two artists first met in 1986, when the young Sugito was under the tutelage of Nara, who was teaching at the time in order to finance his trip to Germany, where he was planning on enrolling at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. The pair became friends, and vowed to one day collaborate on a project. Toying with the idea of “Over the Rainbow”—the famous song written for The Wizard of Oz (1939) by Broadway musicians Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg—it was not until the summer of 2004, when sharing the Augarten Studio of the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in Vienna, that the duo brought to life the song title that was to champion their artistic direction.

 

Featuring only approximately thirty five paintings, the 2004 collaboration between Nara and Sugito is a charming amalgamation of Sugito’s enchanting landscapes, and Nara’s endearing doe-eyed figures. Marianne (Lot 1054) exemplifies this partnership: with her diamond-shaped pupils glinting with stars, adorable Peter Pan collar, and radiant orange hair, Marianne looks out at us with unblinking eyes, hypnotic.

 

The pupils in Marianne also underscore an important turning point in the depiction of eyes in Nara’s oeuvre.  Looking back on his development of eyes in 2013, Nara commented, “They say human eyes are the mirror of the soul, and I used to draw them too carelessly. Say, to express the anger, I just drew some triangular eyes. I drew obviously-angry eyes, projected my anger there, and somehow released my pent-up emotions. About ten years ago, however, I became more interested in expressing complex feelings in a more complex way.”¹

 

This “more complex way”; this completely new, more mature, developed, intricate way, in which Nara depicted eyes at the turn of the millennium can definitely be seen first in Marianne, which was created precisely around this time. Marianne is thus an extremely early example of Nara’s exploration of eyes that shine with the iridescence of many galaxies, a feature that was to become quintessential in his later works. Coupled with the multi-layered, Sugito-esque background filled with cobalt helixes and vermilion strokes, we are further beckoned into Marianne’s world.

 

The background of the piece is also an important element in the development of Nara’s style. When one compares Untitled (Day Sale Lot 878) from 1988, and Night Cat (Day Sale Lot 874) from 1999 with the present Marianne from 2004, one can feel the progress and change of Nara’s penchant for deep and layered backgrounds. In comparison to the earlier, almost patchwork-like background of Untitled, and the later speckled background of Night Cat, the present Nara-Sugito collaboration is much more complex and alluring.

 

Within Marianne are also echoes of different influences, most important of which is the allusion to The Wizard of Oz, the source for the collection. Marianne’s bright ginger hair immediately brings to mind Dorothy’s orange braids. Dorothy’s journey along the Yellow Brick Road with her companions the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man, is likewise alluded to in Marianne’s bright yellow jumper. In a more subtle way, the film’s progression is hinted at through the background—with its colours peeking through the apparently black web, Wizard of Oz’s transition from black and white to the then ground-breaking Technicolor and special effects, comes to mind. The change from grayscale to colour was to embody the emancipation from “real life”, as Dorothy stepped into a world filled with colour and wonder.

 

The painting also bears an uncanny resemblance in both composition and subject matter to Amedeo Modigliani’s later paintings of young girls, such as Girl with Braids, painted in 1918. Painted just two years before his death, Modigliani’s heroine too stares vividly at her audience, set against a nondescript background of household furniture. Known for the development of the modernist style, Modigliani’s oeuvre featured many characters with elongated features, which many have come to understand as the artist’s meditations on the illness in humanity, possibly drawn from his own life so filled with ailments. In many ways, the girl’s plainness and sombreness are what make her relatable, a ubiquitous representation of youth—albeit one with a hint of sadness.     

 

Departing from such linear and solemn designs, Nara and Sugito’s Marianne is pregnant with life, mystery, and youth, as accentuated by Marianne’s round face and wide-set eyes. With her mouth slightly held open and faintly upturned, it seems that our eccentric heroine is about to break into a smile. Ultimately, Marianne is a painting that captures the thrills and wonders of childhood. 

Another hugely important influence on Nara’s childhood and youth was his love for Punk and Rock music; so much so, that the artist has on several different occasions been known to work alone in his studio, with music blaring in the background. In an interview with curator Melissa Chiu for his 2010 solo exhibition at the Asia Society in New York, entitled “Nobody’s Fool”, the artist further elaborated, “Music certainly played a major role in the formation of me as an individual. The influence of music on me is far more significant than that of manga and other things that people talk about.”² Rock You! (Lot 1055), featuring a little girl standing confidently in the centre of the painting with large uppercase lettering surrounding her, looks not unlike a band poster, highly reminiscent of British Rock band Queen’s famous song “We Will Rock You”, for which many iconic images and posters have been created. It also undoubtedly brings to mind many Pop Art references, such as Roy Lichtenstein's bold work, Whaam! (1963). Moreover, her rebellious smile is a signature of Nara’s, an expression poised somewhere between mischief and anger, which contrasts with her innocent outlook. Having moved on from depicting his characters with this expression, the rebellious sneer has become a rarity in Nara’s oeuvre. Nonetheless, the solitary girl is still very much alone, evoking the feelings of loneliness that the artists battled with in his childhood. In spite of this however, the solitude of the girl is counteracted by the bold exclamatory “Rock You!”, as if through music and Rock, the girl has found peace—much like how the young Nara would have felt when he found solace and happiness in music.

 

Big Pup Head (Lot 1056) is yet another emblem of Nara’s youth. Frequently commented on during interviews, Nara’s childhood struggles with loneliness and feelings of abandonment are key leitmotifs in the artist’s pieces. When asked about the heavy allusions to dogs in his works, Nara has commented on how they remind him of children, and that the two are “interchangeable representations of loneliness and solitude.”³ Furthermore, dogs are weighty references to the artist’s self-perceived “abandonment” of a stray dog which he failed to adopt as a child. In many ways, then, dogs feature as a symbol for the artist’s own psyche, embodying the artist’s childhood solitude and feelings of guilt.

                                                                

These two feelings were certainly so overwhelming that they drove Nara to pen and illustrate his first ever children’s book, The Lonesome Puppy in 1999. The book introduces a puppy so big that it is seen by no one, until a little girl befriends him: “The little girl and the big puppy each found a friend. And they were friends forever…No matter how alone you are, there is always someone, somewhere, waiting to meet you.”⁴ The story is a tale of isolation and sadness, then subsequent acceptance and happiness—sentiments which are no doubt captured in the serene, smiling and sleeping Big Pup Head presently on offer.

 

The Big Pup Head is a visually stunning piece. Though it is a sculpture, it exhibits the same qualities of a painting, each gentle stroke heaped onto the smooth surface, creating a subdued, soft glow of sorts that seems to emanate from within the pup. In comparison to many other well-known, large-scale Pup pieces that have been exhibited, such as the one at Aomori and Phuket, the present piece is not only attractive due to its compact size; it is also—in contrast to pure white—rendered in a gentle pastel colour that no doubt conjures the many whimsicalities of childhood.

 

In a poem entitled “Dogs from Your Childhood”, penned by Yoshitomo Nara in 1999, the artist describes a dog that he sees in his mind’s eye, possibly from a time long-passed: “If the gathered past becomes the present, then perhaps the fragment of the imploding now that is the dog, is me, is you, as well.”⁵ From this we feel the full extent of Nara’s philosophy on childhood: it is an all-encompassing, ever-shifting state, where characters and symbols meld seamlessly into one another to make room for a world of puppies, dolls, cats; where one can at once be a puppy and a child. Coupled with the talents of Hiroshi Sugito, Nara’s magical world is all the more so, capturing the child-like, bright-eyed wonder that the equally bright-eyed painters still retain, even long into their adulthood.  

1 “An Interview with Yoshitomo Nara”, Asymptote Journal, Hideo Furukawa, moderated by Sayuri Okamoto, November 2013
2 Melissa Chiu, “A Conversation with the Artist”, Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool, Asia Society, 2010
3  Refer to 2
4 The Lonesome Puppy, Yoshitomo Nara, Chronicle Books LLC., United States, 1999, unpaginated. 
5  Refer to 2, p.61