FLOAT 100 · Art · No. 80
Flower Ball: Red (3D)
Takashi Murakami packed hundreds of smiling red flowers into a circle and shaded them so the whole thing seems to bulge off the wall, then printed it 300 times, and the result is one of the easiest ways to own a piece of his flower universe.
- Year
- 2013
- Maker
- Takashi Murakami
- By price in art
- 91 of 100
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Create a free account- Artist
- Takashi Murakami (born 1962, Tokyo)
- Also titled
- Red Flower Ball (3D); Flowerball (3D) - Red Ball
- Date
- 2013
- Medium
- Offset lithograph in colors on smooth wove paper
- Size
- 71 cm (28 in) diameter, round
- Edition
- 300, signed and numbered in ink at lower right
- Publisher
- Co-published by the artist and Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., Tokyo and New York
- Not to be confused with
- Red Flower Ball (3-D), 2012, a 70 x 70 cm screen print with platinum leaf in an edition of 50
A ball made of flowers
The Flower Ball prints are circular compositions crowded with Murakami's smiling flowers. Each flower has its own face, and the shading and overlap are arranged to create the illusion of a three-dimensional sphere, which is where the '(3D)' in the titles comes from.
The red version, published in 2013, is printed by offset lithography on smooth wove paper and is a perfect circle 71 cm, or 28 inches, across. It was issued in an edition of 300. Copies are signed and numbered in ink at the lower right and were co-published by the artist and his company, Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., in Tokyo and New York.
Murakami issued the same round format in many colorways in 2013, including a blue-and-red version mounted on aluminum and face-mounted to acrylic, also in an edition of 300.
Murakami's flower
Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo on February 1, 1962. He studied Nihonga, traditional Japanese painting, at Tokyo University of the Arts, earning a master's degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1993. The smiling flowers first appeared in his work in 1995 and draw on that training's focus on natural forms.
The flower has also been read as a carrier of repressed, contradictory emotions and of the collective trauma left in Japan by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Murakami's Superflat theory, published in 2000, traced flat, two-dimensional imagery from Japanese art history into manga and anime.
His studio began in 1996 as the Hiropon Factory and was incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. in 2001. Kaikai Kiki produces and publishes his editions, and his flowers have appeared on handbags, album covers and skateboards as well as in museums.
2013
Murakami was busy in 2013. His first feature film, Jellyfish Eyes, which mixed live action with computer-generated creatures, was released in April. He also published the five offset lithographs of Flowers Blooming in This World and the Land of Nirvana that year.
In Japan, September brought news that Tokyo had been awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics. Abroad, Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February and Edward Snowden's surveillance disclosures began in June.
On the market
With 300 copies of each colorway, the Flower Ball prints are among Murakami's most frequently traded editions. In October 2026 a dealer shipping from Tokyo listed a copy of Flowerball (3D) - Red Ball for $2,100. A U.S. online dealer listed Red Flower Ball (3D) at $1,990, in its original Kaikai Kiki box, and marked it sold out.
Other 2013 colorways give a sense of the range. A copy of Flower Ball (3D) (Blue and Red), number 35 of 300, sold in the U.S. on December 4, 2025, for $2,794. A different red design, Flowerball (3D) - Turn Red!, copy 61 of 300, sold in the U.S. on April 26, 2023, for $2,882 against an estimate of $1,000 to $1,500.
Copy 105 of 300 of the red print was offered in an online auction; bidding has closed, but the result is not shown.
How to identify one
Check three things: the date, the size and the edition. The 2013 offset print is round, 71 cm across, and numbered out of 300.
A separate and far rarer work, Red Flower Ball (3-D) of 2012, is a screen print with platinum leaf, 70 x 70 cm, in an edition of 50. A copy numbered 46 of 50 was listed at $31,200 by a New York gallery's shop and marked sold out. It should not be confused with the 2013 offset edition.
Also distinct is Flower Ball (3D) Red Cliff, which carries a 2011 date. Titles vary from listing to listing, so the medium, date and edition number are the surest guide.
The numbers
- Medium
- Offset lithograph in colors on smooth wove paper
- Dimensions
- 71 cm (28 in) diameter
- Edition size
- 300
- Signature
- Signed and numbered in ink, lower right
- Publisher
- The artist and Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., Tokyo and New York
- Catalogue raisonné
- None stated
Timeline
Takashi Murakami is born in Tokyo.
Murakami earns a doctorate in Nihonga from Tokyo University of the Arts.
The smiling flowers first appear in Murakami's work.
Murakami starts the Hiropon Factory studio.
Murakami publishes his Superflat theory.
The studio is incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
Murakami makes Red Flower Ball (3-D), a screen print with platinum leaf in an edition of 50.
The offset Red Flower Ball (3D) is published, 71 cm round, in an edition of 300.
Flowerball (3D) - Turn Red!, a related design, sells for $2,882.
Flower Ball (3D) (Blue and Red), copy 35/300, sells for $2,794.
A Tokyo-based dealer lists the red print at $2,100.
The world in 2013
A meteor explodes over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring nearly 1,500 people.
Benedict XVI resigns as pope, the first to do so since 1415.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected Pope Francis.
Bombs at the Boston Marathon kill 3 people and injure 264.
Edward Snowden's disclosures about U.S. mass surveillance begin to appear.
Tokyo is awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Typhoon Haiyan strikes the Philippines and Vietnam, killing at least 6,241 people.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2026 | $2,100 | Asking price, not a saleFlowerball (3D) - Red Ball, 2013, edition of 300, listed by a dealer shipping from Tokyo. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Flower Ball: Red (3D) is number 91 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (80 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The '(3D)' in the title does not mean a sculpture: it is a flat print shaded to look like a sphere.
- A 2012 Red Flower Ball (3-D) with platinum leaf, in an edition of only 50, was listed at $31,200, about 15 times the price of the 2013 offset print.
- Murakami's smiling flowers first appeared in his work in 1995.
- Murakami holds a doctorate in traditional Japanese painting.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026