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Yoshitoma Nara lives at the intersection of punk rock, Japanese pop art, and Western cartoon culture filtered through the lens of post-World War II Japan. His drawings, paintings, sculptures, and large installations are populated with adorable-yet-menacing children and animals that whisper to the misfit in all of us. Chronicle Books has just published a long-awaited catalogue raisonné of Nara’s work. Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works is a gorgeous, massive two-volume set totaling 800 pages and filled with more than 4,000 lush color reproductions and photographs, and commentary by Banana Yoshimoto, Takashi Murakami, Hiroshi Sugito, and Midori Matsui. Boing Boing is delighted to feature selections from this definitive collection of work by one of the most important and iconic pop artists of the last two decades.

All images are from

Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works

By Yoshitomo Nara

Published by Chronicle Books, 2011

LEFT: People on the Cloud, 1989
Acrylic on Canvas, 100 x100 cm

The Longest Night, 1995
Acrylic on Canvas, 120 x110 cm

Untitled, 2008
Billboard painting

Mr. Sky, 1997
Sculpture

Miss Forest, 2010
Ceramic

Ocean Child (In the Floating World), 1999
Edition

Fuck ‘bout Everything (In the Floating World), 1999
Edition

Untitled, 2000s
Photograph

Kabul Note, 2002
Photograph

Declaration of War, 1998
Drawing for THE STAR CLUB
Works on Paper

Live for the Moment, 1998
Drawing for THE STAR CLUB
Works on Paper

Hula Hula, 1998
Works on Paper

Untitled, 1992-2000
Works on Paper