Early Works
11 works
Yoshitomo Nara Life Is Only One! For Sale
Yoshitomo Nara
Life Is Only One!, 2010
Wood block
26 1/10 × 20 1/5 × 1 in | 66.2 × 51.2 × 2.6 cm
About this work
Yoshitomo Nara stands as one of the most influential figures to emerge from Japan's Neo-Pop movement, his work occupying a critical position alongside contemporaries such as Takashi Murakami while maintaining a distinctly personal visual language. His characteristic subjects—wide-eyed children with expressions oscillating between innocence and quiet defiance—have secured his place in major institutional collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Life Is Only One! from 2010 exemplifies Nara's mature practice, presenting his signature child figure rendered through the traditional Japanese woodblock technique. This choice of medium represents a deliberate engagement with ukiyo-e printmaking traditions, grounding his contemporary imagery within centuries of Japanese artistic heritage. The work's title carries the artist's recurring philosophical undertones, balancing existential weight with disarming simplicity—a tension that defines much of his most resonant output. Issued in an edition of fifty, this woodblock belongs to a period of sustained critical and commercial recognition for Nara, whose auction results have consistently demonstrated robust collector demand across international markets. The dimensional quality of the piece, with its notable depth of over two and a half centimeters, speaks to the physicality of the woodblock process and distinguishes it from his offset lithographs and standard prints. Works from this edition appear infrequently on the secondary market, and examples in strong condition remain sought after by collectors of post-war Japanese contemporary art. For acquisition inquiries, please contact Guy Hepner, New York.
Price on Application
Auction History
Life is Only One; My Little Treasure; I Don’t Want to Grow Up; Gypsy Song; Don’t Wanna Cry; Walk On; Poindexter; 1-2-3-4 Pissed Off !; Hateful Christmas; & S.O.S. · Yoshitomo Nara · Christie's · 2022-07 · $682,514
Life is Only One · Yoshitomo Nara · Sotheby's · 2016-01 · $11,978
Life is Only One (Set of Three） · Yoshitomo Nara · Sotheby's · 2021-05 · $3,900
Life is Only One Plates (three works) · Yoshitomo Nara · Heritage Auctions · 2017-07 · $1,000
Life is Only One Plates (set of three) · Yoshitomo Nara · Heritage Auctions · 2017-06 · $812
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About the Woodblock Prints Series
Overview
Yoshitomo Nara's woodblock prints bring his instantly recognisable cast of wide-eyed children into dialogue with one of Japan's oldest artistic traditions. Where the paintings and drawings channel punk energy and raw emotion, the woodblocks filter that same sensibility through the disciplined language of ukiyo-e — the "pictures of the floating world" that defined Japanese printmaking for centuries. The result is a body of work that feels at once ancient and defiantly contemporary. Guy Hepner offers woodblock prints from across Nara's career at our New York gallery.
Technique & Tradition
Traditional Japanese woodblock printing is a painstaking relief process: a design is transferred to a block, usually of cherry wood, and a carver chisels away everything that will not print, leaving the image raised in relief. Ink is applied to that raised surface and the sheet is pressed by hand, one colour and one block at a time. Nara embraces this labour-intensive craft, allowing the grain of the wood and the slight irregularities of hand-pressing to become part of the image rather than something to be hidden.
That embrace of tradition is also a form of subversion. In his celebrated In the Floating World project (1998–1999), Nara took famous historical ukiyo-e compositions — the courtesans and kabuki actors of masters such as Utamaro — and reworked them, inserting his own scowling, solitary figures into the genre's revered templates. It is an act of affectionate vandalism: honouring the tradition while running wild through it.
The Works
Nara's engagement with woodblock and woodcut spans more than two decades, from the late-1990s In the Floating World suite and Slash With A Knife through later multiples including 10 Woodcut Prints Set and Life Is Only One!, and on to recent works such as Knife, Sprout In The Hand Mirror and This Machine Kills Fascists. Across these pieces the recurring motifs are unmistakable — the confrontational stare, the small figure alone against an empty ground, the flashes of text and object that hint at music, protest and childhood defiance.
Issued in limited editions, these prints are among Nara's most collectible multiples, prized for the way they translate the emotional charge of his painting into the deliberate, tactile medium of the carved block.
Collecting Nara Woodblock Prints
Nara's woodblocks appeal to collectors drawn to the meeting point of contemporary art and traditional craft, and they sit naturally alongside his lithographs, editions and works on paper. Guy Hepner Gallery presents authenticated woodblock prints with full provenance documentation. Contact our New York team to discuss current availability and acquisition.
About Yoshitomo Nara
Yoshitomo Nara
Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959, Hirosaki, Japan) stands as one of the most influential figures in contemporary Japanese art, whose deceptively simple portraits of wide-eyed children—at once innocent and subversively defiant—have become icons of the Neo-Pop movement. Trained in Düsseldorf and deeply influenced by punk rock and anime culture, Nara creates works that resonate across cultural boundaries, commanding an international collector base and record-breaking auction results. His paintings, drawings, and sculptures are held in major museum collections worldwide, cementing his position as a defining voice in 21st-century art.