FLOAT 100 · Art · No. 79
Flowers Blooming in This World and the Land of Nirvana
Takashi Murakami's grinning flowers were born from the memory of Hiroshima, and after the 2011 tsunami he gave them a Buddhist title and sent them out in five crowded prints that a Brisbane museum now keeps as a set.
- Year
- 2013
- Maker
- Takashi Murakami
- By price in art
- 81 of 100
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Create a free account- Artist
- Takashi Murakami (born 1962, Tokyo)
- Date
- 2013
- Format
- A suite of five separate compositions, numbered 1 to 5
- Medium
- Offset lithograph in colors on satin wove paper; one dealer adds a cold-stamp metallic layer
- Size
- About 50 x 50 cm (19 3/4 x 19 3/4 in) per sheet, square
- Edition
- 300 of each, signed and numbered in ink at lower right
- Publisher
- Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., Tokyo (some catalogs: co-published with the artist, Tokyo and New York)
- Museum set
- Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
- Note on this entry
- The prints are square, about 50 cm, not 71 cm round as sometimes listed
Five fields of smiling flowers
Flowers Blooming in This World and the Land of Nirvana is a group of five offset lithographs that Takashi Murakami published in 2013. Each sheet is square, about 50 cm on a side, and each of the five is a different composition, numbered 1 through 5 after the title. Each was printed in an edition of 300.
All five are packed edge to edge with Murakami's signature flowers: cartoon blossoms with round faces, most smiling, some not. In the words of one dealer, the image is cheerful on the surface and dense once the repeating faces begin to stack up. The prints run to the edges of the sheet, with no white border.
Copies are signed and numbered in ink, in black or silver, at the lower right. They were published by Murakami's own company, Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., in Tokyo. One catalog describes them as co-published by the artist and Kaikai Kiki in Tokyo and New York.
Murakami and the flower
Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo on February 1, 1962. He trained in Nihonga, traditional Japanese painting, at Tokyo University of the Arts, earning a master's degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1993. In 2000 he published his Superflat theory, which traces a legacy of flat, two-dimensional imagery from Japanese art history into manga and anime.
His studio, the Hiropon Factory, started in 1996 and was incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. in 2001. Kaikai Kiki publishes his prints, including this suite.
The smiling flower has been described as a figure that calls up repressed, contradictory emotions and the collective trauma left in Japan by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The flowers look happy; the history behind them is not.
After the tsunami
The title points to Buddhism. According to the Brisbane museum that owns a full set, Murakami developed an interest in the stories and imagery of Buddhism during a period of searching after the tsunami disaster that struck Japan in March 2011.
By naming the prints after Nirvana, the museum argues, Murakami stressed how flexible the flowers are as a subject: the same mass-produced image can take on new meanings without any real change in form.
The suite came out in a busy year for the artist. His first feature film, Jellyfish Eyes, which mixed live action with computer-generated creatures, was released in April 2013. In September of that year Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics.
On the market
With five images and 300 copies of each, the suite is common at auction, both as single sheets and as complete sets. A full set of all five, each signed and numbered, sold in a New York online sale that closed on July 19, 2017, for $7,500 against an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000. Another full set sold in London for £2,375.
Single sheets also trade. Copy 105 of print number 5 was sold in a U.S. online auction in August 2021. Copies 244 and 134, one of them this design, sold together with another Murakami print as a single lot in a New York online sale for $2,500, against an estimate of $2,000 to $3,000.
In October 2026 one U.S. dealer listed print number 5 for $6,850, shipped in its original Kaikai Kiki gallery box, and print number 4 for $8,450.
How to identify one
Check the number after the title: the five designs are separate works, and catalogs often add 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to tell them apart. Sheet sizes are given as 49.5, 50, 50.2 or 50.5 cm square, depending on the catalog.
A genuine copy is signed and numbered out of 300 in ink at the lower right and carries the copyright line of Takashi Murakami and Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. The paper is a smooth or satin wove sheet printed to the edges.
Some listings describe the prints as screen prints, but museum and auction catalogs agree that they are offset lithographs.
The numbers
- Medium
- Offset lithograph in colors on satin wove paper
- Dimensions
- About 50 x 50 cm each (catalogs give 49.5 to 50.5 cm)
- Edition size
- 300 per design, five designs
- Signature
- Signed and numbered in black or silver ink, lower right
- Publisher
- Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., Tokyo
- Public collection
- Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (set of five, 50.5 x 50.5 cm each)
- Catalogue raisonné
- None stated
Timeline
Takashi Murakami is born in Tokyo.
Murakami earns a doctorate in Nihonga from Tokyo University of the Arts.
Murakami starts the Hiropon Factory studio.
Murakami publishes his Superflat theory.
The studio is incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
The tsunami disaster in Japan; afterward Murakami turns to Buddhist themes.
Kaikai Kiki publishes Flowers Blooming in This World and the Land of Nirvana, five offset lithographs in editions of 300.
Murakami's first feature film, Jellyfish Eyes, is released.
A complete set of all five sells in a New York online sale for $7,500.
Copy 105 of print number 5 is sold at a U.S. online auction.
A U.S. dealer lists print number 5 at $6,850.
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 | $6,850 | Asking price, not a salePrint number 5, single sheet, signed and numbered, listed by a U.S. dealer. |
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, Flowers Blooming in This World and the Land of Nirvana is number 81 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 (79 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- There is not one Land of Nirvana print but five, each a different design, with 300 copies of each.
- A complete set of all five sold in 2017 for $7,500, less than a dealer asked in 2026 for a single sheet.
- Murakami's smiling flowers have been read as a response to the collective trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- A museum in Brisbane, Australia, holds a complete set of the five.
- 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