Yoshitomo Nara

Galerie van Dieten-d'Eendt, Amsterdam
Private Collection, Netherlands
Christie's, London, 23 June 2006, Lot 300
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Yoshitomo Nara, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works. Vol. 2: Works on Paper, Tokyo 2011, p. 91, no. D-1996-014, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the left sheet has slightly fewer blue undertones and the right sheet is slightly warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheets are attached verso to the mount and undulate slightly. The upper edges are irregularly cut, which is in keeping with the artist's choice of medium.
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“The possibility of coming into contact with the outside world is always either made difficult or completely foiled. The children have eyes but they are closed. They have a mouth but it is slightly pressed tightly shut and shrunk to a small line.” 

Stephan Trescher

'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog', in: Manfred Rothenberger, Ed., Lullaby Supermarket: Yoshitomo Nara, Nuremberg 2001, p. 9

Yoshitomo Nara was born in 1959 in Hirosaki in the Aomori Prefecture. His formative years were marked - if not marred - by intense feelings of isolation: born to emotionally distant, workaholic parents in post-war Japan and growing up as the youngest of three sons by a drastic age difference, Nara’s childhood was for the most part spent alone. Translating his intense emotions into a prolific, multi-disciplinarian artistic practice, Nara translated his initial feelings of loneliness and sense of abonnement into portraits of young solitary children set against barren backgrounds. 

The present lot, Abandoned Puppy, Waiting, executed in 1996, is a testament to Nara’s distinctive and universally resonant oeuvre that quickly gained an international followership. Juxtaposed as a diptych, the child costumed as an abandoned puppy portrays the typical rebellious attitude that is evocative of many of Nara’s portraits of lonely children while the other work shows the same child in a tamed and awaiting position. By creating works that are both deeply personal, Nara’s oeuvre is at once strongly individual yet very relatable.