The artist s famously sassy cartoon characters command millions of dollars.
February 22, 2021
Yoshitomo Nara. Photo credit: Ryoichi Kawajiri. Courtesy of Pace Gallery and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.
A small girl in a red dress with one hand hidden behind her back glowers defiantly. Is she a harmless child in the throes of a tantrum, or something more sinister? The simple but cheeky title
Knife Behind Back yields a sobering clue.
The painting, created in 2000 by the Japanese sensation Yoshitomo Nara, soared to a final price of $24.9 million when it was offered at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October 2019, roughly five times the artist’s previous auction record of around $5 million at the time.