Guy Hepner Gallery

Takashi Murakami DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion) For Sale

Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami - DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion), 2013, Offset lithograph in colors with foil and gloss varnish

DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion), 2013

Offset lithograph in colors with foil and gloss varnish

20 x 20 in50.8 x 50.8 cm

Edition

Edition of 300

About this work

Takashi Murakami's series, And Then, is a profound exploration of his artistic evolution, spanning from the early stages of his career in the 1990s to his status as a globally recognized figure in art and design by 2013. This series of lithograph prints reflects Murakami's journey through various phases of his development, showcasing how his style and thematic concerns have matured and expanded over the years.By 2013, Murakami had not only been named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People," but he had also formed high-profile collaborations with celebrities like Kanye West and luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton. These partnerships underscored his dual influence in both the art world and popular culture, mirroring the celebrity associations and commercial success enjoyed by Andy Warhol, whom Murakami is often compared to. Like Warhol, who is known as the father of Pop Art, Murakami has been dubbed the 'Warhol of Japan' due to his similar fascination with mechanical repetition, mass production, and the merging of commercial and high art.Murakami's academic background in 'nihonga'—a traditional style of Japanese painting—at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music initially led him to a career within the conventional fine art world. However, feeling constrained by its politicized and insular nature, he pivoted towards contemporary styles, drawing significant inspiration from 'otaku' culture—a subculture steeped in technology and popular media. This shift was further enriched by his engagement with anime and manga, which are often considered elements of Japan's 'low' culture. By incorporating these aspects into his art, Murakami not only blurred the lines between 'high' and 'low' culture but also challenged the hierarchical distinctions prevalent in the art world.Murakami’s And Then series exemplifies his unique ability to synthesize Eastern and Western influences, adopting techniques from Western fine arts and melding them with iconic elements of Japanese visual culture. This fusion is evident in the prints themselves, which range from his early experimental works to those produced at the peak of his international acclaim, each piece serving as a milestone in his ongoing quest to redefine the boundaries of contemporary art. Through this series, Murakami continues to challenge conventional notions of art, much like Warhol did with his iconic depictions of consumer goods, yet he maintains a distinctive voice that captures the complex interplay of globalization, culture, and identity.

Price on Application

Auction History

Takashi Murakami - DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion); and DOB in Pure White Robe (Pink & Blue)

DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion); and DOB in Pure White Robe (Pink & Blue) · Takashi Murakami · Sotheby's · 2023-08 · $4,864

Takashi Murakami - DOB in Pure White Robe (Pink and Blue) and DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermillion) (two works)

DOB in Pure White Robe (Pink and Blue) and DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermillion) (two works) · Takashi Murakami · Heritage Auctions · 2016-10 · $4,000

Takashi Murakami - DOB IN PURE WHITE ROBE (PINK & BLUE) DOB

DOB IN PURE WHITE ROBE (PINK & BLUE) DOB · Takashi Murakami · Sotheby's · 2020-09 · $3,871

Takashi Murakami - And Then x 6 (White: The Superflat Method, Blue & Yellow Ears); and DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Verm...

And Then x 6 (White: The Superflat Method, Blue & Yellow Ears); and DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion) · Takashi Murakami · Phillips · 2026-02 · $2,064

Takashi Murakami - DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermillion)

DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermillion) · Takashi Murakami · Heritage Auctions · 2020-12 · $1,875

More from this series

More series by Takashi Murakami

About the And Then and Then and Then and Then and Then Series

Takashi Murakami And Then and Then and Then and Then and Then Prints For Sale

And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then is one of Takashi Murakami's most psychedelically charged and conceptually layered series—a body of 33 artworks produced between 1996 and 2006 that traces the full arc of his development from emerging artist to global art world phenomenon. The series takes its title from Natsume Soseki's 1909 novel Sorekara (And Then), a work of Japanese modernism that grapples with the passage of time, regret, and the gap between desire and fulfilment. Murakami translates this literary inheritance into vivid print form through Mr. DOB, his totemic cartoon alter-ego, placing the character within psychedelic mushroom landscapes of hallucinatory intensity. The mushroom imagery carries its own layered meaning—simultaneously evoking Japan's post-Hiroshima atomic legacy, the counterculture associations of the 1960s West, and the fantastic visual vocabulary of Japanese video games and animation.

Across the 33 works in the series, colour shifts dramatically: early editions tend toward saturated, confrontational palettes of acid yellow and electric blue, while later works introduce subtler, more complex chromatic relationships that reflect Murakami's growing technical and artistic sophistication. The series spans lithographs and prints produced in limited editions, with signed works and earlier editions from the mid-1990s commanding the strongest collector premiums. Mr. DOB's visual evolution across the series is itself a document of Murakami's expanding ambitions—from a figure rooted in anime parody to something stranger, more threatening, and more formally accomplished. The series was historically subject to a severe title truncation issue on the gallery's platform, with the maximum character setting rendering titles effectively invisible; this has been fully resolved, restoring proper discoverability across all 33 works.

For collectors, And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then offers a rare opportunity to trace a major artist's development across a decade-long body of work. The series is simultaneously a pop cultural artefact, a meditation on Japanese literary and atomic history, and a formally inventive sequence of print works that demonstrate Murakami's mastery of colour, composition, and the serialised image. The secondary market for Murakami prints has deepened considerably over the past decade, with key works from this series achieving strong auction results as the artist's institutional reputation continues to consolidate. These are works that belong in serious collections of contemporary Japanese art.

Guy Hepner specializes in museum-quality prints from Takashi Murakami's most significant series, including authenticated works from And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then, And Then.

View full series →
DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy & Vermilion)

About Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami Prints For Sale

Takashi Murakami prints for sale at Guy Hepner Gallery in New York span the full range of his edition output: Superflat flower prints, skull series, Mr. DOB works, Kaikai Kiki editions, and collaborative works that have made Murakami one of the most actively traded artists in the contemporary print market. For collectors seeking Takashi Murakami art for sale — whether an iconic flower screenprint, a limited-edition sculpture multiple, or a major canvas — Guy Hepner at 177 Tenth Avenue, New York offers expert guidance, full provenance documentation, and access to authenticated works across all his major series.

Takashi Murakami (b. 1962, Tokyo) is the defining figure of contemporary Japanese art on the international stage — an artist, theorist, entrepreneur, and studio director whose Superflat theory and the enormously productive practice it generated have permanently altered the conversation about the relationship between high art and popular culture, between Western postwar painting and East Asian visual tradition, and between the studio and the factory. Murakami received his BA, MA, and PhD from the Tokyo University of the Arts in Nihonga — traditional Japanese painting — a rigorous formation that gives his apparently anarchic pop sensibility its underlying structural discipline.

The Superflat manifesto, which Murakami developed and articulated in the early 2000s, proposed that the flattened pictorial space of traditional Japanese painting and the surface-oriented aesthetics of anime and manga were not merely parallel phenomena but expressions of the same deep cultural logic — a logic that Western art history had misread as naivety but which Murakami identified as a sophisticated and distinctive mode of representation.

Murakami's Visual Universe: Flowers, Skulls, and Mr. DOB

Through his practice, Murakami has built a visual universe populated by recurring characters and motifs:

  • Smiling Flowers — deceptively cheerful multi-eyed blossoms that bloom across canvases, prints, and merchandise of enormous scale and colour variety. The flowers are Murakami's most recognisable and actively traded motif in the edition market.
  • Mr. DOB — Murakami's alter ego and running commentary on consumerism; a hybrid figure drawing on anime, cartoon, and pop art traditions
  • Skulls — rendered in the manner of traditional Japanese vanitas imagery, these works bridge his engagement with the history of Japanese craft and his fascination with mortality and popular culture
  • Kaikai and Kiki — his studio mascots, which appear across prints, sculptures, and merchandise as embodiments of the Kaikai Kiki production ethos
  • Flower Ball — large-scale sphere compositions made of repeating flower motifs; among his most sought-after sculptural and print works

Takashi Murakami: Kaikai Kiki Studio and Production

Murakami's Kaikai Kiki studio and production company — employing dozens of assistants in an explicit homage to both the Japanese craft workshop and Warhol's Factory — produces paintings, sculptures, editions, merchandise, and cultural events with equal seriousness and commercial intent. This model, in which studio production, cultural criticism, and commercial output are deliberately merged, is central to understanding Murakami's practice and the edition market that surrounds it.

Murakami: Major Collaborations and Cultural Reach

Murakami's major collaborations have extended his work into fashion, music, and popular culture on a global scale. His partnership with Louis Vuitton produced some of the most successful fashion-art collaborations of the 2000s. His album artwork for Kanye West's Graduation brought his visual language to audiences that had no prior engagement with contemporary art. His collaborations with Supreme and other streetwear brands have ensured that his work circulates across youth culture as readily as it does in museum collections.

These collaborations have expanded the collector base for his fine art editions significantly: many collectors who first encountered Murakami through fashion or music have subsequently acquired prints and multiples, creating sustained demand across a wider demographic than most contemporary artists command.

Takashi Murakami: Market and Auction Results

Murakami's auction record stands at $15,200,000 for My Lonesome Cowboy (1998) at Sotheby's New York in 2008, and major paintings continue to command seven-figure results. His edition prints and multiples — flower series, skulls, Mr. DOB, Kaikai Kiki — are among the most actively traded in the contemporary edition market globally. Print prices range from $3,000–$5,000 for smaller open editions through $50,000–$200,000+ for rare signed limited editions and artist proofs in high demand colourways.

Murakami's work is held in permanent collections at MoMA, MOCA Los Angeles, the Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Tate Modern, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Centre Pompidou, the Rubell Museum, and the Mori Art Museum Tokyo.

What to Look For When Buying Takashi Murakami Prints

Edition size: Murakami produces both open-edition merchandise-style prints and tightly limited fine art editions. The latter — often numbered to 50 or fewer, with hand signature and certificate of authenticity from Kaikai Kiki — carry the strongest value and market liquidity.

Motif and colourway: Flower works in rare colourways, skull editions, and Mr. DOB prints consistently outperform peripheral motifs. Rainbow colourways and gold/metallic editions typically carry premium over standard colourways.

Authentication: All fine art editions should come with Kaikai Kiki certificates of authenticity and, for works sold through Perrotin or other authorised galleries, original gallery documentation.

Condition: Murakami's prints are typically produced on archival substrates, but condition remains important — works stored and framed correctly hold value most reliably.

Buy Takashi Murakami Art For Sale at Guy Hepner Gallery, New York

Guy Hepner offers a curated selection of Takashi Murakami prints for sale and edition multiples across all his major series from our gallery at 177 Tenth Avenue, New York. We bring expert knowledge of the Murakami edition market and offer free, confidential valuations for collectors looking to sell or appraise their holdings. Whether you are seeking an iconic flower print, a skull series multiple, or a rare signed limited edition, Guy Hepner provides the market expertise, authentication assurance, and collector access to support every acquisition.

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