Yoshitomo NaraYoshitomo Nara -Slash with a Knife (from the series In the Floating World), 19991999
1999
About the Item
Yoshitomo Nara (1959)
Slash with a Knife (from the series In the Floating World), 1999
Medium: Color xerox print after a reworked woodblock
Sheet: 41.5 × 29.5 cm (16 3/8 × 11 5/8 in)
Edition: Ed. 28/50 (10 Artist Proofs were also issued)
Signature: Signed lower right ãªã‚‰; dated lower left: ’99; inscribed lower right: slash/ with/ a knife
Publisher: Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo
Provenance:
SBI Art Auction, Tokyo, 14 July 2018, Lot 068
Private Collection Asia
China Guardian, Hong Kong, 10 October 2025, lot 096
Purchased from the above
Literature:
Catalogue raisonné, YNF2558
BSS No. E-1999-001
Collection:
The British Museum (Ed. 48/50); 高橋コレクション / Takahashi Collection (Edition to be confirmed); ヌサンタラ近ç¾ä»£ç¾Žè¡“館（マãƒãƒ£ãƒ³ç¾Žè¡“館） / The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN) (Ed. 47/50); ピーボディ・エセックス・ミュージアム/ Peabody Essex Museum, Gift of the estate of Mark A. Fischer, 2016.34.16.8 (Edition to be confirmed)
Description
A feral, wave-textured figure grips a short blade as the scrawled slogan “Slash with a knife†cuts across the sheet. Nara fuses ukiyo-e inflections (the curling, Hokusai-like swells that model the face and hair) with punk-zine immediacy—flat color, scuffed textures, and urgent hand-drawn marks. The result is a charged image of alienation and menace that dispenses with the artist’s usual child protagonist, making this print a seminal statement within the In the Floating World group.
Context
Executed in 1999, during Nara’s final year living in Germany (he returned to Japan in 2000), the work condenses the late-1990s tenor of his practice—pop clarity sharpened by psychological unease—into one of his most provocative prints.
Condition
In excellent condition, with no remarkable damages or signs of aging. Framed, not inspected out of its frame.
- Creator:Yoshitomo Nara (1959, Japanese)
- Creation Year:1999
- Dimensions:Height: 16.34 in (41.5 cm)Width: 11.62 in (29.5 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Hong Kong, HK
- Reference Number:Seller: YON-0181stDibs: LU1545217294642
Yoshitomo Nara
Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara is one of the most influential artists to emerge from Japan's Pop art movement in the 1990s. Drawing inspiration from the anime and manga characters that he was exposed to during his childhood, Nara creates characters, usually small children, who possess similar cartoonish qualities, with highly stylized features and especially large eyes. However, Nara's illustrations of children, who are often brandishing weapons, are often more menacing and devilish than they are cute and innocent.
Nara has assembled a cult-like following centered around his childlike illustrations although the themes surrounding his work touch on broader social and cultural topics such as violence and the rigidity of social structures in Japan. While he works mainly in painting and drawing, he also experiments in sculpture and installations.
Since his first solo exhibition at Blum and Poe Gallery in 1984, Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions worldwide, from Iceland to Japan to France to the United States.
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