Marker pen and coloured pencil on paper

21 x 15 cm. 8 1/4 x 6 in.

LITERATURE
2011, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works 1984-2010, Volume 2: Works on Paper, Bijutsu Publishing House, Tokyo, p. 186
PROVENANCE
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
Important Private Collection, Asia
26 Nov 2017, Christie's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 253
Important Private Collection, Asia

Note: A label of New York Marianne Boesky Gallery is affixed on the reverse

A Young Boy on Lonely Planet
Yoshitomo Nara's Confessional Work Untitled (Don't Laugh)

Yoshitomo Nara was born in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, in 1959. He developed a love of drawing and painting at a young age and moved to Germany in 1987 to perfect his craft at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. At the beginning of the 1990s, he began to hold personal exhibitions throughout his home country. In 2001, he launched his first large-scale travelling exhibition, I Don't Mind If You Forget Me, which was hosted by institutions such as the Yokohama Museum of Art. In 2015, his exhibition Life is Only One! at the Asia Society Centre in Hong Kong elicited even more attention from the international art community. Nara's works have been collected by as many as 40 institutions worldwide, including the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Open Your Heart: Turning Solitude into Inspiration
Untitled (Don't Laugh) showcases Nara's artistic growth from 1999 to 2002. We can see a slightly dejected-looking boy sitting idly on the floor with his back against the wall. He stares downward at an orange model car. The exhaust from its tailpipe vividly evokes the young boy's fluctuating mood. He has a bandaid on his forehead and trees growing out of his golden hair, which give him a whimsical appearance. Around him are sparkling stars. The scene is reminiscent of The Little Prince's lonely protagonist searching for love and taming a fox among the stars. In the text at the bottom, the boy beseeches us to not laugh at him. The artist wants to elicit our compassion for those who open their hearts to us, exposing their solitude for the world to see.

A Precious Double-Sided Image
After completing the front, Nara was hit with a sudden surge of inspiration and decided to draw on the back with a marker, creating a double-sided image. On the back, we can see a single bed. The handwriting in the foreground seems like the murmurs of someone having a vivid dream. A number of jellyfish float by, taking the viewer into an undersea world. Although Nara has produced thousands of drawings on paper, he has rarely created double-sided works like this one. In total, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has 29 double-sided drawings by Nara in its collection, In secondary warket, only ten such drawings have been sold at auctions in the past six years. Of these drawings, Untitled (Don't Laugh) has the most elaborate composition and depicts a most thrilling scene, imbuing it with great value as a collector's item!

Price estimate:
HKD: 480,000 –580,000
USD: 61,200 – 74,000

Auction Result:
HKD: 566,400