Takashi Murakami
Coined Superflat, painted smiling flowers, and ran a studio like a production company.
Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962 and took a doctorate in Nihonga, the traditional Japanese painting discipline, before turning to the manga and anime culture he argued had flattened Japanese visual life after the war — the theory he named Superflat. He founded Kaikai Kiki as a studio and production company employing dozens of people, established the GEISAI art fair, and has collaborated with Louis Vuitton, Kanye West, Billie Eilish and Supreme. The smiling flower, Mr DOB and the skull motifs are the most reproduced parts of the work.
The tiers are wide and the confusion between them is the central problem for sellers. Unique paintings in acrylic on canvas mounted on panel lead; below them are sculptures and figures in editions of a few hundred, then offset lithographs and screenprints published in editions of three hundred, then collaborative product and merchandise. The offset editions are numerous, are signed in the plate or in pencil, and are frequently described as limited-edition artworks in a way that overstates them. Counterfeit prints and figures are widespread.
If you own a work by Takashi Murakami
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.