Christie’s will present Yoshitomo Nara’s Haze Days (1998) at its 20th/21st century evening sale in London on October 15th. The work is estimated at £6.5 million–£8.5 million ($8.73 million–$11.42 million).
Between 1996 and 2000, Nara only produced 22 canvases exceeding 5 feet in height, making Haze Days a rare example of the artist’s works. The painting depicts a solitary child in a pool, staring outward with a defiant look and glaring green pupils. This psychological tension and childlike subject is typical of the artist’s practice.
The approximately 5-by-6-foot canvas comes to market shortly after the close of Nara’s retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery, his first institutional solo exhibition in the United Kingdom and the most comprehensive in Europe to date. Haze Days was not part of the Hayward presentation. Completed in 1998, during Nara’s final years in Germany, the painting is recognized as one of the earliest examples of his mature artistic style.
This is not the first time that Haze Days has come to auction. It was consigned to Sotheby’s “Now” evening sale in 2023 with a low estimate of $18 million, but was withdrawn before the auction began. Nara’s current auction record is held by Knife Behind Back (2000), which sold for $25 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2019.
There have been several major sales of Nara works at auction recently, particularly in Asia. On September 28th, Can’t Wait ’til the Night Comes (2012) sold for HKD 79.9 million ($10.26 million) at Sotheby’s modern and contemporary evening sale in Hong Kong, against an estimate of HKD 65 million–HKD 85 million ($8.35 million–$10.92 million).
