Knife Behind Back

A boy from Aomori, a decade in Germany

Yoshitomo Nara was born on December 5, 1959, in Hirosaki, in Aomori Prefecture at the northern tip of Japan's main island. As a child he listened to Western music on the American military radio station Far East Network, and punk rock became a lasting influence; he later made cover art for bands including Shonen Knife and R.E.M.

He earned a BFA in 1985 and an MFA in 1987 from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, and in 1988 went to the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, where he studied under the painter A. R. Penck. Sources differ on how long he studied there: the 2019 sale catalogue describes a six-year apprenticeship, while another account gives 1988 to 1993. Afterward he stayed in Cologne until 2000.

The sale catalogue, citing the artist, says the isolation of living abroad sent him back to the acute loneliness of his childhood but also let him recover a sense of his true self, away from the feeling of being watched that he had in Japan. In the mid-1990s his paintings had thick black outlines, vivid colors and a rough, manga-like flatness; the children in them often held knives, chainsaws, pistols or clubs.

The year the knife disappeared

Knife Behind Back was painted in 2000, the year Nara moved back to Japan. That year marked a shift in his work: he began painting full-length girls on large canvases set against luminous, pearly grounds built up through layering. The heads grew smaller and the proportions closer to a real child's, and the weapons left the canvases. From 2000 on, Nara kept explicit weapons for his works on paper.

This painting sits exactly at that turn. A year earlier came paintings such as The Girl with Black Eye, Pistol, and a canvas titled with an expletive, all from 1999; a few works later came girls holding a cloverleaf (The Little Ambassador, 2000), a wand (The Little Judge, 2001) or a blank sheet of paper (Come on, 2001). Here the knife is named in the title but not shown. The sale catalogue calls it a double-edged warning: the weapon's absence makes it more menacing, because it is hidden with intent.

Nara once said of the small knives in his earlier pictures: 'Look at them, they are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those? I don't think so. Rather, I kind of see the children among other bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives.'

Ten minutes in Hong Kong

The painting was first sold by Nara's longtime gallery in Los Angeles. Accounts of what happened next differ slightly: one report says the 2019 seller bought it directly from the gallery, while the sale catalogue lists a private collection in California between the gallery and the seller. Another account says the work had traded twice before 2019.

On October 6, 2019, it was offered at an evening sale of contemporary art in Hong Kong with its estimate available only on request, reported as more than HK$50 million (about $6.4 million). Six phone bidders competed for about ten minutes while protests raged outside the building. It sold for HK$195,696,000 with fees, reported as about $24.9 million.

At more than seven feet by six feet, it was the largest work by Nara ever sold at auction, and it was the top lot of a 34-lot sale that brought HK$538 million. His previous auction record, about $4.45 million for Sleepless Night (Cat) of 1999, had been set only that May. Only hours earlier, an installation by Nara had set a new record of HK$40.12 million at another Hong Kong sale. Knife Behind Back made Nara the most expensive Japanese artist at auction. The buyer has not been publicly named.

How to know it

Knife Behind Back is acrylic on canvas, 234 by 208 centimeters, signed, titled and dated 2000 on the reverse. It is no. P-2000-016 in Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, the artist's catalogue raisonne of paintings, sculpture, editions and photographs, published in Tokyo in 2011 (vol. 1, p. 168).

It shows a single girl with a large head and an intense, angry stare, set against the kind of luminous ground Nara began building up in layers in 2000. Market descriptions note a muted palette of reds, browns, greens and creams. The painting is unique; Nara's many prints and editions of similar girls are separate works, and none carries this title and catalogue number.

After the record

The 2019 result changed Nara's market. In November 2021 his 1996 painting Nice to See You Again sold in New York for $15,430,800, his second-highest price, and other paintings have since brought tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars. As of August 2026, Knife Behind Back was still reported as the highest price ever paid at auction for his work.

Museums kept pace. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art held a retrospective of 100 works from 36 years, from April 1, 2021, to January 2, 2022; the Guggenheim Bilbao showed him in 2024; and a European retrospective opened at the Hayward Gallery in London in June 2025. 'I think all the pictures I've created are like my reflections,' Nara said at that opening.

In September 2026 an earlier painting, Present (1994), one of only five known 1990s works in which Nara painted his protagonist's full figure, was scheduled to be offered at auction in Hong Kong; a pre-sale account described it as a precursor to Knife Behind Back.

The numbers

Medium

Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

234 x 208 cm (92 1/8 x 81 7/8 in)

Catalogue raisonne

P-2000-016 (Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, vol. 1, Tokyo, 2011, p. 168)

Inscriptions

Signed, titled and dated 2000 on the reverse

Current owner

Private; the 2019 buyer has not been publicly named

Timeline

1. Dec 5, 1959

   Yoshitomo Nara is born in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture.

2. 1985

   Nara earns his BFA from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music.

3. 1987

   Nara earns his MFA from the same university.

4. 1988

   Nara begins studying at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf under A. R. Penck.

5. 1999

   Nara paints The Girl with Black Eye and Pistol, two of the last canvases with open violence.

6. 2000

   Nara returns to Japan after twelve years in Germany and paints Knife Behind Back.

7. 2001

   The touring retrospective I Don't Mind, If You Forget Me opens in Japan.

8. 2010

   Nobody's Fool, Nara's first major New York exhibition, opens at Asia Society.

9. 2011

   The Complete Works catalogue lists the painting as P-2000-016.

10. May 25, 2019

    Sleepless Night (Cat) sets a Nara auction record of about $4.45 million.

11. Oct 6, 2019

    Knife Behind Back sells in Hong Kong for HK$195,696,000, about $24.9 million, a record for the artist.

12. Apr 1, 2021

    LACMA opens a Nara retrospective of 100 works, on view until January 2, 2022.

13. Jun 2025

    A European retrospective of Nara's work opens at the Hayward Gallery in London.

The world in 2000

• Jan 1, 2000

  Millennium celebrations mark the start of the year 2000 around the world.

• Mar 26, 2000

  Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia.

• Jun 26, 2000

  A first draft of the Human Genome Project is announced at the White House.

• Jul 25, 2000

  Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde, crashes after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and four on the ground.

• Aug 12, 2000

  The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea with all 118 men aboard.

• Sep 15, 2000

  The Summer Olympics open in Sydney, Australia.

• Oct 31, 2000

  Soyuz TM-31 launches the first resident crew to the International Space Station.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Knife Behind Back is number 20 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 (20 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The knife in the title never appears in the picture.
• Hours before Knife Behind Back sold, a Nara installation had set a new auction record for him of HK$40.12 million; within hours the painting beat that figure by nearly five times.
• Protests were raging outside the building while six phone bidders fought over the painting.
• Nara grew up hearing Western music on an American military radio station, and he has made album art for Shonen Knife and R.E.M.
• Nara studied in Dusseldorf under A. R. Penck, at the same academy where Gerhard Richter had trained and taught.
• From 2000 on, Nara kept weapons out of his canvases and saved them for drawings and works on paper.