Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
“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.”
—Yoshitomo NaraA young girl in a blue dress snarls and shreds her guitar in Yoshitomo Nara’s Guitar Girl, 2019. The determined, yet strikingly cherubic figure epitomizes Nara’s classic type, the “Ramona” (named for the Ramones, a punk rock band, and sporting the group’s signature, shaggy hairstyle), a feisty character who embodies youthful rebellion and ferocious self-determination. Guitar Girl is a “symbolic representation of the dominant feelings of Japanese youth” in the early 21st century, “characterized by a sense of uncertainty about the future, vulnerability, and a yearning for the innocence [of childhood],” expressed through Nara’s playful interpretation of American rock and roll, and traditional and contemporary Japanese art.i
As a child, Nara’s first exposure to art came through the album covers of his favorite records. “There was no museum where I grew up,” he said, so punk, folk, and rock records served as artistic inspiration.ii As a teenager a song “that played from the radio blew my mind… my whole precocious self was blown away!” he said. “That song lit a fire in my raw teenage emotion. It was the Ramones! And then the Sex Pistols, and The Clash, and Bob Marley… They gave me an answer to how I’d live my life from then on.”iii One can imagine Guitar Girl as a female avatar of Nara’s own teenaged self, listening to the Ramones’ guitar-heavy music on the radio, and practicing the riffs on her own.iv
The Ramones playing the Phase V club in New Jersey, 1976. Image: Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo Nara’s simplified, expressive characters, reminiscent of children’s book illustrations and cartoons, reveal how deeply the visuals from Nara’s childhood influence his work. However, the artist is quick to reject manga, anime, and kawaii culture as visual referents; the influence of music and illustration is much more meaningful, he said.v
That is not to say, of course, that Nara’s work is not without Japanese visual antecedents. The rounded facial features of Guitar Girl harken back to traditional otafuku (or okame) theatrical masks. The otafuku mask, worn in Noh theater performances, represents the Goddess of Mirth, an ever-smiling, rosy cheeked woman, who brings good luck to the man she marries (the word otafuku literally meaning “much good fortune”).vi Nara applies otafuku facial features—round cheeks, upturned eyes, and small lips—to his Guitar Girl, but crucially, he transforms the Goddess of Mirth’s eternal grin into a ferocious snarl. Guitar Girl seems to bite her lip as she bares her teeth, an aggressive gesture that speaks to the counter-cultural edge of Nara’s work. This punk rock ethos is reflected in the Tokyo street style fashion photography of Nara’s contemporary, Shoichi Aoki, for FRUiTS magazine. Nara’s Guitar Girl, like Aoki’s teenage models, captures the stylish dissatisfaction and malaise of a generation of young Japanese people navigating the lasting effects of Western culture on Japan after World War II.vii
[Left] Detail of performer (at left) wearing an otafuku mask, c. 1601-1604. Private Collection. Image: akg-images / Liszt Collection
[Right] Shoichi Aoki, street fashion still from FRUiTS magazine, Issue 40, Sep. 23, 2000. Image: © Shoichi AokiThe combination of Western and Japanese references in Guitar Girl’s tough attitude places Nara’s work among that of his Japanese Pop peers, including Takashi Murakami and Chiho Aoshima. From 2001, Nara was associated with Murakami’s concept of SUPERFLAT, which interrogated the crux of post-War Japanese capitalism and traditional values.viii Like Murakami, Nara uses bright colors and flattened forms, but works like Guitar Girl, with their simplified backgrounds, place more focus on the temperament and interiority of his figures, rather than just their surface. Guitar Girl bares her fangs, daring the viewer to guess what she’ll do next.
i Midori Matsui, “Art for Myself and Others: Yoshitomo Nara’s Popular Imagination,” in Melissa Chiu, et al., eds., Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool, exh. cat., Asia Society Museum, New York, 2010, p. 13.
ii Yoshitomo Nara, quoted in Gareth Harris, “Interview: Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara,” Financial Times, Oct. 10, 2014, online.
iii Nara, quoted in Chiu et al., 258.
iv Matsui, p. 15.
v Nara, quoted ibid., 174-175; 181.
vi “Okame (otafuku) mask,” Folk Art Museum of Central Texas, accessed Apr. 16, 2023, online.
vii Kyle MacNeill, “FRUiTS: a look back at the greatest Japanese street style hits,” THE FACE, May 25, 2022, online.
viii Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, “Superflat,” Artnet, 2001, online.
Provenance
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Dallas Contemporary, Yoshitomo Nara: I Forgot Their Names and Often Can't Remember Their Faces but Remember Their Voices Well, March 20–August 22, 2021
Literature
The Yoshitomo Nara Foundation, ed., Yoshitomo Nara. The Works: Online Catalogue Raisonné, 2011–ongoing, no. YNF6686, online (illustrated)
"Exhibition Review: Yoshitomo Nara at the Dallas Contemporary," Danny With Love, August 14, 2021, online (Dallas Contemporary, 2021, installation view illustrated)
12
Guitar Girl
signed and dated "2019 Nara" on the reverse
acrylic on wood, in artist's frame
46 1/2 x 37 3/8 x 3 1/8 in. (118.1 x 94.9 x 7.9 cm)
Executed in 2019.
Estimate
$2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
Carolyn Mayer
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CMayer@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 May 2023
1
Noah Davis
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $990,600
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
2
Caroline Walker
Conservation
Estimate $150,000 - 350,000
Sold for $469,900
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
3
Julien Nguyen
Jeu de Paume
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
4
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chignon
Estimate $6,000,000 - 9,000,000
Sold for $7,320,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
5
This lot is no longer available.
6
Louise Bonnet
The Red Pants
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $406,400
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
7
Yayoi Kusama
Red Stripes
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,722,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
8
Yayoi Kusama
Blue Spots
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
9
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Untitled (after Ernst Thelott)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $635,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
10
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,633,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
11
Ed Ruscha
Dixie Red Seville
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
12
Yoshitomo Nara
Guitar Girl
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
13
Banksy
Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,724,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
14
Henry Taylor
Dakar, Senegal #3
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $584,200
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
15
Robert Colescott
A Death of an Old Mulatta
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
16
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Escape Collage
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $990,600
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
17
This lot is no longer available.
18
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #7
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $2,843,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
19
Damien Hirst
Reconciliation
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
20
Robert Ryman
Mark
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,811,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
21
Wayne Thiebaud
Chocolate Merangue
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,238,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
22
Anna Weyant
Unconditional Love
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $609,600
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
23
This lot is no longer available.
24
María Berrío
No One Can Hear You, Only the Wind
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $635,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
25
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
26
Wayne Thiebaud
Levee and Cow
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,085,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
27
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,117,600
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
28
Andy Warhol
Mona Lisa Four Times
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
29
Ed Ruscha
Manual Mobility
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $3,448,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
30
Jadé Fadojutimi
The Menstrual Marshland
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $533,400
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
31
Helen Frankenthaler
On the Road
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,875,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
32
Robert Rauschenberg
Bath
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $444,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
33
This lot is no longer available.
34
Sanya Kantarovsky
Deprivation
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,700
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
35
Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Mirror
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,505,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
36
Issy Wood
Untitled (Harley's foot thing)
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
37
Simone Leigh
Figure (Cobalt)
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $825,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
38
Joan Miró
L’Espace
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $381,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
39
Joan Miró
Femme et oiseau
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
40
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $635,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
41
Sturtevant
Study for Warhol Marilyn
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,419,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.