Takashi Murakami with examples of his iconic kawaii-inspired flowers.
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is best known for his vibrant, bright, and frequently bizarre works that take inspiration from both traditional Japanese art and popular culture such as manga and anime.
In the past 20 years, Murakami’s fame has increased exponentially, and he is now one of the most celebrated contemporary artists in the world, with his prints accounting for 83% of his work sold at auction. Murakami prints usually fetch between £1,000 and £5,000, but many reach higher prices, and they regularly exceed their estimates.
Below is a list of the seven most expensive Takashi Murakami prints sold at auction. If you own a Murakami print and would like to find out more about how to sell it, or how much it may be worth, get in touch with Mark Littler today.
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Portrait De Karl Lagerfeld
This screenprint of the fashion giant Karl Lagerfeld comes from Takashi Murakami’s first series of portraits. The portraits were created for the well-known American fashion magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and their subjects included other fashion icons such as Stella McCartney, Donatella Versace, and Marc Jacobs. Part of Murakami’s aim in turning to portraiture was to explore the signature genre of Andy Warhol, an artist he has often been compared with.
The Lagerfeld serigraph from Murakami’s series was included in the first of three auctions of the fashion designer’s vast estate after his death. The auction was organised by Sotheby’s and took place in Monaco in December 2021, with Portrait de Karl Lagerfeld being sold for £196,555, almost £100,000 above its estimated price.
Portrait De Karl Lagerfeld Sold By Sotheby’s in 2021
Flower Belt
In the past 20 years, Murakami’s fame has spiked, partly due to his work on numerous projects outside the traditional realms of art, and his collaborations with musicians, fashion designers, and others in the entertainment industry. One such collaboration resulted in Flower Belt, a sublimation print incorporating a belt from Off-White, the fashion label founded by designer Virgil Abloh.
Murakami and Abloh collaborated on several projects over the years which have been widely celebrated by the art and fashion worlds, and Flower Belt was sold by Mallet Japan Inc. in March 2022 for £119,824, almost doubling its estimate.
Flower Belt Sold By Sotheby’s in 2022
Superflat Monogram: Panda And His Friends
This 2005 screenprint displays many of Murakami’s trademark symbols, including vibrant flowers, cartoon-style characters, and, in the background, the monogram of Louis Vuitton, one of Murakami’s long-time collaborators.
Though the artist studied Nihonga – a traditional style of Japanese fine art – Murakami is also heavily-inspired by Japanese popular culture, including manga and anime. Moreover, he founded the Superflat art movement, drawing on Japanese artistic traditions and contemporary culture; many of the Superflat concepts can be found in this print which, incredibly, reached over seven times its estimated price when it was sold in October 2009 by Sotheby’s for £42,057.
Superflat Monogram: Panda And His Friends Sold By Sotheby’s in 2009
Rachael (Rachel) (Large-Brown)
This 1992 silkscreen print on plexiglass was sold by SBI Art Auction in July 2019 for £40,832 in its original plexiglass box. Unusually for Murakami, the print contains no manic cartoon characters or garish colours, and there is more subtlety in the use of tones and perspectives. This can be explained by looking at the date of the print; it was created early in the artist’s career, before he gained his ph.D in Nihonga and before he published the Superflat theory which helped make him famous.
Rachael (Rachel) (Large-Brown) Sold By SBI Art Auction in 2019
Louis Vuitton Monogram
Murakami began working with the celebrated fashion house, Louis Vuitton, in 2002, when Marc Jacobs was the creative director. Since then, the artist and the fashion house have collaborated on a huge number of pieces to great effect; Vogue called it “the defining collaboration of the noughties”, and Marc Jacobs stated the Monogram Multicolore collection was a “monumental marriage between art and business.”
The marriage didn’t only result in clothes and accessories, however: this series of five screenprints from 2007 (contained within the original Louis Vuitton presentation boxes) was sold in October 2021 by Phillips for £36,234. They remain amongst Murakami’s most sought-after prints to this day and consistently fetch high prices at auction.
Louis Vuitton Monogram Sold By Phillips in 2021
Kaikai Kiki News/Flower Superflat/Field of Smiling Flowers/Open Your Hands Wide/Kakai Kiki And Me – The Shocking Truth/& Flowers, Flowers, Flowers
This collection of six vibrant prints was sold by Christie’s in March 2016 for £23,665, more than three times its estimated asking price. The series includes many of Murakami’s favourite concepts and images, including kawaii, a Japanese term meaning “cuteness” which often incorporates bright colours, unabashed joy, and childlike innocence.
In these prints, as in many others, Murakami explores kawaii through his iconic smiling flowers, one of his most recognisable and popular symbols to date. Two of his recurring characters, Kaikai and Kiki, also make an appearance; the anime-inspired characters proved so popular that Murakami named his art production and artist management company after them, and he even used his kawaii flowers as the company’s logo
Set of 6 Prints Sold By Christie’s in 2016
Untitled (Red And Gold DOBs)
Early in his career, Murakami developed a pop icon which he dubbed ‘Mr. DOB’, derived from Japanese slang meaning ‘why?’ Mr. DOB is inspired by both Eastern and Western popular culture, deriving his appearance from characters such as Mickey Mouse, Pikachu, and Doraemon.
Murakami stated that he “set out to investigate the secret of market survivability” and the “universality” of such well-known characters; over the years, Mr. DOB has become a kind of alter-ego for the artist, endlessly changing, shifting, and expanding in new directions, but remaining ever popular. This particular print was sold by Phillips in November 2019 for £23,361, demonstrating Takashi Murakami has undoubtedly achieved his aim in cracking the secret of market survivability.
Untitled (Red And Gold DOBs) Sold By Phillips in 2019
