Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Story
A small girl with an enormous head stares out, half sweet and half furious, sometimes holding a knife. She looks like a children book character who has had enough.
This is the signature image of Yoshitomo Nara, one of the most beloved artists to come out of Japan.
He is a Japanese artist famous for paintings of big headed children and animals whose cute surfaces hide loneliness, defiance and quiet rage.
Three worth your evening
If you want the detail rather than the summary:
The Ambassadors, detail by detail, the object at the bottom that only works from one side
Luncheon of the Boating Party, detail by detail, who everybody at that table actually was
Ten women artists you need to know, the names the textbooks skipped
Cute and furious at once
Nara figures look simple and adorable, but their eyes carry suspicion, anger or sadness. The clash between a sweet style and a hostile glare is the heart of his work.
His clean, flat acrylic painting makes the children glow against pale backgrounds, all attention on the face.
A child of pop and punk
Nara grew up in northern Japan watching cartoons and listening to Western rock and punk, often alone while his parents worked.
That mix of pop culture and solitude shaped everything. His debt to comics and album covers places him close to a Japanese strand of Pop art, sometimes called Neo Pop.
The loneliness underneath
The defiant children are widely read as self portraits of a kind, images of a solitary childhood and a stubborn inner life.
Nara has said his solitary early years, left to his own imagination, are the true source of his art, which is why the small rebels feel so personal.
From the wall to the auction
He came to fame in the 1990s alongside a wave of Japanese artists who fused fine art with manga and toys, and his work spread through prints, figures and installations as well as paintings.
His canvases now sell for many millions, and a single painting of one of his glaring girls set a record for the artist at auction in Hong Kong.
Questions people ask about Yoshitomo Nara
What is he known for?
Paintings of big headed children with angry, sad eyes.
Are they happy or angry?
Both, the sweet style hides defiance and loneliness.
Where is he from?
Hirosaki, in northern Japan, born in 1959.
Is he influenced by music?
Yes, rock and punk run all through his work.
Why the angry children connect
Nara found a face for a feeling everyone knows, the small, stubborn refusal of a child who will not be told what to feel. That single glaring girl has crossed every border, loved by punk fans, collectors and children alike, which is why she now sells for the price of an Old Master.
After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck near his home region, his work grew softer and more searching, the glares easing into something gentler.
He still listens to music constantly while he paints, and has filled whole installations with the little huts and cluttered studios where his characters seem to live.
He has designed album covers and collaborated with musicians, keeping the bond between his art and the rock and punk that shaped him.
His drawings and sculptures fill major museums in Japan and abroad, and travelling shows of his angry, tender children draw long queues wherever they go, a level of public love few living painters command.
A single painting of one of his glaring girls sold in Hong Kong for around twenty five million dollars, a record that placed a big headed child among the most valuable works by any living Japanese artist.
His characters have appeared on skateboards, record sleeves and charity projects, spreading far beyond the gallery while keeping the same hand drawn warmth.