Top 10 Japanese artists

[15/04/2016]

Top 10 Japanese artists

In Artprice’s fortnightly series of auction rankings, this week’s Friday Top looks at the best auction results for Japanese artists between January 2015 and March 2016.

The ranking has three obvious leaders whose multi-million dollar results clearly distinguish them from their compatriot artists. These are Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara and Kazuo Shiraga.

Top 10 Japanese Artists
Rank Artist Hammer Price Artwork Sale
1 Yayoi KUSAMA $7,033,080 No. Red B (1960) 2015-10-04 Sotheby’s Hong Kong
2 Yayoi KUSAMA $5,850,000 Interminable Net #3 (1959) 2015-05-12 Sotheby’s New York NY
3 Yayoi KUSAMA $3,716,748 No.Red.A.B.C (1960) 2015-11-29 Seoul Auction Hong Kong
4 Yoshitomo NARA $3,413,000 The Little Star Dweller (2006) 2015-11-09 Christie’s New York NY
5 Yayoi KUSAMA $3,077,000 Untitled (1967) 2015-05-13 Christie’s New York NY
6 Yoshitomo NARA $3,036,365 Missing in Action (2000) 2015-10-14 Phillips Londres
7 Kazuo SHIRAGA $3,106,320 Jyumanhassenbongomaku (1977) 2015-04-04 Sotheby’s Hong Kong
8 Yoshitomo NARA $2,543,880 Yr. Childhood (1995) 2015-05-30 Christie’s Hong Kong
9 Kazuo SHIRAGA $2,435,520 Hika (1999) 2015-04-06 Poly Auction Hong Kong Hong Kong
10 Kazuo SHIRAGA $2,228,979 Untitled (Red Fan) (1965) 2016-02-11 Bonhams Londres
copyright © 2016 artprice.com

 

Yayoi Kusama (the only female artist in our global ranking of the Top 50 Post-War artists by annual auction turnover) is an internationally recognised Pop artist, particularly known for her work with polka dots. In 2015 her works twice crossed the $5 million threshold. Leaving aside Takashi Murakami’s quite exceptional result of $15 million for his Lonesome Cowboy sculpture in 2008, Kusama is in fact the world’s most expensive Japanese artist. On 5 October, 2015, Sotheby’s Hong Kong hammered $7 million (incl. fees) for her No. Red B ($2 million above its high estimate). A large red canvas from 1960, the work sold just short of the artist’s auction record ($7.1 million incl. fees at Christie’s New York for her canvas White No. 28 on 12 November 2014). No. Red B was acquired by a private Asian collector. Collected at the highest levels all over the world (35% of her turnover is generated in the US, 17% in Japan and 10% in the UK), Kusama’s prices are up 271% since 2010, and more than 600% since 2000. She is undoubtedly one of the global art market’s leading signatures.

From the same generation as Kusama, Shiraga Kazuo (1924-2008) has only been fetching 7-figure auction results for two years. In fact, 2014 marked a major turning point for the artist’s market value: his large gestural canvases began fetching results of several million dollars in Paris, New York, Hong Kong, but also in Munich. This price surge followed New York’s Guggenheim Museum exhibition dedicated to the Gutai group in which Shiraga Kazuo was strongly represented (Gutai: Splendid Playground, 15 February – 8 May, 2013). Shiraga Kazuo was one of the founders of the Gutai (meaning concrete) group that was one of the most radical movements of the late 20th century. He participated in the group’s first exhibition in Tokyo in 1955 and his fame was subsequently relayed to Paris where his work was exhibited at the Stadler Gallery in 1962. In New York, his performances were noticed by Allan Kaprow, but the movement fizzled out in 1972. At the time, Shiraga Kazuo was already teaching painting at Osaka. He also became a Zen Buddhist monk at Mount Hiei Temple (north of Kyoto). His paintings, produced in a performative spirit, are the fruit of bodily struggles with colour. Considered one of the leading artists of postwar Japan, Kazuo Shiraga has a particularly active market in France (29% of his auction turnover in 2000), but also in Hong Kong (26%), the USA (15%), Japan (13%) and the UK (11%), among others.

The third Japanese artist dominating our ranking is Yoshitomo Nara (1959). 2015 was an excellent year for the artist — his best-ever in fact — with no less than four results beating his best result in 2014, including a new auction record at $3.4 million for the painting The Little Star Dweller (2006), sold at Christie’s New York on 9 November 2015. In 2015, Nara’s work generated $29 million at auctions (twice his previous year’s total) and the artist enjoyed major exhibitions at the Pace gallery in Hong Kong (Stars,13 March – 25 April 2015) and at the Blum & Poe gallery in Tokyo (Shallow Puddles, 2 October – 14 November 2015). In our global ranking of artists by annual auction turnover, his 2015 total gave him 76th position just behind the American Richard Prince. Affordable for a few hundred dollars via his numerous editions of objects and prints, Nara’s market attracts all types of collectors, from beginners up to the world’s wealthiest buyers. One of the leading artists of Japan’s Neo Pop movement, Nara is a market favourite thanks to strong support from a number of very powerful galleries.